Allende, Isabel (1942- )

Peruvian-born Chilean novelist. She is one of the leading exponents of magic realism. After the assassination in 1973 of her uncle, Chile's socialist president Salvador Allende, she lived in exile in Venezuela. Her first novel La casa de los espíritus/The House of the Spirits (1982; filmed 1993) is a detailed account of family life during the preceding tumultuous years.

Allende worked as a journalist 1964-84. Her later novels De amor y de sombra/Of Love and Shadows (1984) and Eva Luna (1987) combine fantasy with the ‘real’ worlds of investigative journalism, film-making, and politics. She has also published short stories and children's books.

Her other books include The Infinite Plan (1993), her memoir Paula (1995), Daughter of Fortune (1999), Portrait in Sepia (2001), City of the Beasts (2002), and My Invented Country (2003).