Editing Isabel Allende (section)

==Career==
Before writing books, Allende worked with the [[United Nations]] [[Food and Agriculture Organization]] in [[Santiago]], then in [[Brussels]], and elsewhere in Europe from 1959 to 1965. For a short time in Chile, she also had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish.<ref name="Companion">{{cite book |last=Cox |first=Karen Castellucci |year=2003 |url=http://www.questiaschool.com/read/111670240?title=Isabel%20Allende%3A%20%20A%20Critical%20Companion |title=Isabel Allende: A Critical Companion |publisher=Greenwood Press |pages=2–4 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> However, she was fired for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent, as well as altering the [[Cinderella]] ending to allow the heroines to find more independence and do good in the world.<ref name="alter2010">{{Cite news|last=Alter|first=Alexandra|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704448304575196020575568424 |title=Isabel Allende on Superstition and Memory |date=25 May 2010 |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]]|access-date=23 April 2010|page=W4|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660|quote=... she often changed the dialogue and endings to make the heroines seem smarter.}}</ref>

=== Exile in Venezuela ===
In 1973, [[Salvador Allende]] was overthrown in a [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|coup]] led by General [[Augusto Pinochet]].<ref name=Norton>{{Cite book|last1=Puchner|first1=Martin|title=The Norton anthology of world literature|last2=Akbari|first2=Suzanne Conklin|last3=Denecke|first3=Wiebke|last4=Fuchs|first4=Barbara|last5=Levine|first5=Caroline|last6=Lewis|first6=Pericles|last7=Wilson|first7=Emily R|isbn=978-0-393-60281-4|language=en|oclc=1019855443|year=2018|location=New York|pages=1133–1141}}</ref> Isabel found herself arranging safe passage for people on the "wanted lists", which she continued to do until her mother and stepfather narrowly escaped assassination. When she herself was added to the list and began receiving death threats, she fled to Venezuela, where she stayed for 13 years.<ref name="Review" /><ref name="ojito2003">{{Cite news|last=Ojito|first=Mirta|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/28/books/a-writer-s-heartbeats-answer-two-calls.html|title=A Writer's Heartbeats Answer Two Calls|date=28 July 2003|work=The New York Times|quote=The only relative on her father's side with whom Ms. Allende had remained close was [[Salvador Allende]], the country's democratically-elected Socialist president, who died in the military coup of Sept. 11, 1973 led by [[Augusto Pinochet]]. Two years later Ms. Allende – by then a wife, the mother of two children and a journalist – fled to Venezuela.}}</ref> It was during this time that Allende wrote her debut novel ''The House of the Spirits'' (1982). Allende has stated that her move from Chile made her a serious writer: "I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be." Allende believed that, being female in a patriarchal family, she was not expected to be a "liberated" person.<ref name=Norton /> Her history of oppression and liberation is thematically found in much of her fiction, where women contest the ideals of patriarchal leaders.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dulfano|first=Isabel|date=October 2013|title=A Response to Isabel Allende's Tanner Humanities Center Human Values Speech|journal=Women's Studies|volume=42|issue=7|pages=816–826|doi=10.1080/00497878.2013.820615|s2cid=145191631|issn=0049-7878}}</ref> In Venezuela she was a columnist for ''[[El Nacional (Caracas)|El Nacional]]'', a major national newspaper.<ref name="correaguatarasma2014">{{cite web |last=Correa Guatarasma |first=Andrés|url=http://www.eluniversal.com/internacional/140415/isabel-allende-mis-mejores-amigos-son-venezolanos|language=es|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140425123141/https://www.eluniversal.com/internacional/140415/isabel-allende-mis-mejores-amigos-son-venezolanos|date=15 April 2014|archive-date=25 April 2014|title=Isabel Allende: "mis mejores amigos son venezolanos"|trans-title=Isabel Allende: "my best friends are Venezuelans"|location=[[Caracas]]|publisher=[[El Universal (Caracas)|Eluniversal.com]]|access-date=11 November 2017}}{{Verse translation|lang=es|'''¿Cómo resume su vida de exilio en Caracas?'''<br />Los chilenos nos beneficiamos de Venezuela como miles de miles de otros de Argentina, Uruguay. En ese momento Venezuela era el segundo país más rico del mundo. Era un país generoso, abierto. Por eso siento mucho dolor con lo que está pasando. Tengo muchos amigos allí, mi hijo se casó con una venezolana, mis nietos nacieron en Venezuela, mi hermano con toda su familia vive en Venezuela. Mis mejores amigos son de Venezuela.|'''How do you summarize your life in exile in Caracas?'''<br />We Chileans benefit from Venezuela like thousands of thousands of others from Argentina, [[Uruguay]]. At that time Venezuela was the [[Economy of Venezuela#1960s–1990s|second richest country]] in the world. It was a generous, open country. So I feel a lot of pain with what is happening. I have many friends there, my son married a Venezuelan, my grandchildren were born in Venezuela, my brother lives in Venezuela with his whole family. My best friends are from Venezuela.}}</ref>

===Journalism===
[[File:Girl Power at TED conference 2007 by jurvetson.jpg|thumb|250px|Allende (in red, 3rd L to R), 2007, at [[TED (conference)|TED]] in California, flanked (L to R) by [[June Cohen]], [[Lakshmi Pratury]] and [[Tracy Chapman]]]]
Beginning in 1967, Allende was on the editorial staff of ''Paula'' magazine and the children's magazine [[Mampato]] from 1969 to 1974, where she later became the editor.<ref name="Glance">{{Cite news|first=Maya|last=Jaggi|author-link=Maya Jaggi|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/feb/05/isabelallende.fiction|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140508221632/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/feb/05/isabelallende.fiction|url-status=live|archive-date=8 May 2014|title=''Life at a glance:'' A view from the bridge|date=5 February 2000|work=[[The Guardian]] Saturday Pages|location=London|page=6|access-date=25 March 2020|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|quote='''Employment:''' Journalist, Paula Magazine, Santiago, 1967-74; [[Themo Lobos#Mampato magazine|Mampato Magazine]] 1969-74; [[Televisión Pública|Channel 7]] humorous programmes 1970–74; freelance, [[El Nacional (Venezuela)|El Nacional]], Caracas 1976–83. Administrator, Marrocco School, Caracas. 1979–83.}}</ref> She published two children's stories, "La Abuela Panchita" and "Lauchas y Lauchones", as well as a collection of articles, ''Civilice a Su Troglodita''. She also worked in Chilean television production for channels 7 and 13 from 1970 to 1974.<ref name="Glance"/> As a journalist, she once sought an interview with poet [[Pablo Neruda]]. Neruda agreed to the interview, and he told her that she had too much imagination to be a journalist and should be a novelist instead.<ref name="Companion"/> He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form.{{r|alter2010|p=W4|quote=... interviewed Pablo Neruda, the poet told her that she'd make a better novelist than a reporter. "I think he saw that I was a liar. As a journalist I could not be objective. I would make up stories ... At the time I was hurt because he said I was the worst journalist.}} She did so, and this became her first published book. In 1973, Allende's play ''El Embajador'' played in [[Santiago]] a few months before she was forced to flee the country due to the coup.

During her time in [[Venezuela]], Allende was a freelance journalist for ''[[El Nacional (Venezuela)|El Nacional]]'' in [[Caracas]] from 1976 to 1983 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979 to 1983.<ref name="Glance"/>

===Author===
In 1977, while in Caracas, Allende received a phone call informing her that her 99-year-old grandfather was near death, and she sat down to write him a letter, hoping to thereby "keep him alive, at least in spirit." The letter evolved into a book, ''[[The House of the Spirits]]'' (1982); this work intended to exorcise the ghosts of the [[Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)|Pinochet dictatorship]]. The book was rejected by numerous Latin American publishers, but eventually published in [[Buenos Aires]]. The book soon ran to more than two dozen editions in Spanish and was translated into a score of languages. Allende was compared to [[Gabriel García Márquez]] as an author in the style known as [[magical realism]].<ref name="Review"/><ref name="levine2002">{{Cite book|last=Levine|first=Linda Gould|title=Isabel Allende|date=2002|publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Twayne Publishers]]|isbn=978-0-8057-1689-4|location=New York|language=en|oclc=48754834|pages=114–133}}</ref>

Although Allende is often cited as a practitioner of [[magical realism]], her works also display elements of [[Latin American Boom#Post-Boom|post-Boom literature]]. Allende also holds to a very strict writing routine.<ref>''LATIN AMERICA'S SCHEHERAZADE; Drawing on dreams, myths, and memories, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende weaves fantastical tales in which reality and the absurd intersect.'' Fernando González. ''[[The Boston Globe#Magazine|The Boston Globe Magazine]]''; p. 14. 25 April 1993.</ref> She writes on a computer, working Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 19:00. "I always start on 8 January", Allende stated, "a tradition she began in 1981 with the letter she wrote to her dying grandfather that would become ''The House of the Spirits''."<ref>'' Allende, heroine 'Ines' are kindred spirits.'' Javier Erik Olvera. ''Inside Bay Area'' (California). Bay Area Living; Home and Garden. 25 November 2006.</ref>

Allende's book ''Paula'' (1995) is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago and the years she spent in exile. It is written as an anguished letter to her daughter. In 1991 an error in Paula's medication resulted in severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state.<ref name="hornblower1995">{{cite magazine |last=Hornblower|first=Margot|author-link=Margot Roosevelt|date=10 July 1995 |title=Grief and Rebirth |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983156,00.html |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722021357/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983156,00.html|archive-date=22 July 2014|url-status=live|magazine=Time |volume=146 |issue=2 |page=65 |access-date=2 November 2017 }}</ref> Allende spent months at Paula's bedside before learning that a hospital mishap had caused the brain damage. Allende had Paula moved to a hospital in California where she died on 6 December 1992.

Allende's novels have been translated into more than 42 languages and sold more than 77 million copies.<ref name="House">{{Cite news|url=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/this-old-house-opened-a-lot-of-doors-for-isabel-allende/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200325040607/https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/this-old-house-opened-a-lot-of-doors-for-isabel-allende/|archive-date=25 March 2020|title=This old "House" opened a lot of doors for Isabel Allende |department=Theater preview |first=Misha|last=Berson|page=H44 |date=1 June 2007|journal=[[The Seattle Times]]|publisher=[[The Seattle Times Company]]|language=en-US|access-date=25 March 2020|quote='I wrote that book exactly 25 years ago. It’s now the 25th anniversary of the book in Spanish. It opened the door for all my other books'". That is Isabel Allende talking about her breakthrough 1982 novel, "The House of the Spirits". The panoramic work chronicles the historical, mystical and the psychological forces in the life of a South American clan. And a play based on the international best-seller debuts next week [8 June 2007] in [[Seattle]].}}</ref> Her 2008 book, ''The Sum of Our Days'', is a memoir. It focuses on her life with her family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren.<ref name="House"/> A novel set in [[New Orleans]], ''[[Island Beneath the Sea]]'', was published in 2010. In 2011 came ''[[El cuaderno de Maya]]'' (''Maya's Notebook''), in which the setting alternates between [[Berkeley, California]], and [[Chiloé Archipelago|Chiloé]] in Chile, as well as [[Las Vegas]], [[Nevada]].