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Isabel Allende Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

How to pronounce Isabel Allende: Ees-abel Ay-enday (or ä-YEN-d?)

Isabel Allende Biography

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and Paula. In addition to her work as a writer, Isabel devotes much of her time to human rights causes. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs.

You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende and on X @IsabelAllende

Isabel Allende's website

This bio was last updated on 04/22/2025. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Interview

Isabelle Allende talks about her characters, what writing means to her, and the challenges of getting published.

19 books, translated into 35 languages. More than 57 million copies sold. 12 international honorary doctorates, 50 awards in more than 15 countries and 2 international movies; these are Isabel Allende's impressive numbers. Lucy Hannau contacted her for an interview and was rewarded with a prompt and kind answer. We thank Ms Allende immensely for her friendship and we praise her for her incredible modesty, since there aren't many award-winning and internationally famous authors who answer ‘yes'to an interview request in less than 48 hours! This is an incredible gift to you, fiction-fans, from the Lost in Fiction team and one of the most sensitive and talented living authors in the world. Her next book, Maya's Notebook, will be out in English in 2012, please don't miss it, it would be a shame!

Which of your characters do you feel more connected to? why?

I heard once that the author is in every character and that every character represents an aspect of the author. I don't identify with one character in particular but in most of my books the main female protagonist is a strong willed, independent and rebellious woman who struggles to beat the odds against her. She is also sentimental and passionate. I feel very connected to ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Isabel Allende at BookBrowse
My Name Is Emilia del Valle jacket The Wind Knows My Name jacket Violeta [English Edition] jacket The Soul of a Woman jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Isabel Allende but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Louis Bayard

    Louis Bayard

    Louis Bayard is the critically acclaimed bestselling author of nine historical novels, including Jackie & Me and The Pale Blue Eye, which was adapted into the global #1 Netflix release starring Christian Bale. His articles, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Daughter of Fortune

    Try:
    Courting Mr. Lincoln
    by Louis Bayard

  • H.W. Brands

    H.W. Brands

    H.W. Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Daughter of Fortune

    Try:
    The Age of Gold
    by H.W. Brands

We recommend 19 similar authors


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