Isabel Allende

The border between fact and fiction has always been a porous one for Isabel Allende. Her acclaimed first novel, The House of the Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather yet is filled with ghosts and green-haired and clairvoyant women; her memoir Paula, though ostensibly nonfiction, is a moving and highly imaginative account of her family history and the illness and death of her daughter, Paula. Even in the many interviews she has given, Allende has embellished the details of her life to captivate and charm her readers. She has more than succeeded. Around the world, readers have flocked to both her fiction and her nonfiction, making her one of the best-selling women novelists in the world today. Edited and with an introduction by John Rodden, a celebrated Allende scholar, this volume in the Critical Insights series brings together a variety of essays on this Chilean Scheherazade. Rodden's introduction assesses the phases of Allende's career and her growth as a writer, and Michael Wood, writing on behalf of The Paris Review, considers Allende's relation to magical realism. Amanda Hopkinson, in turn, provides a comprehensive biography of Allende and a measured examination of how her life has informed her work.

For students encountering Allende for the first time, four introductory essays provide a valuable framework for studying her in greater depth. Beth E. Jörgenson surveys the range of critical opinions and the major strands of critical thought on Allende's work, and Charles Rossman's close reading of The House of the Spirits analyzes in depth the novel's setting, characters, and plot. María Roof compares Allende's use of the family saga novel to Maryse Condé's, and Carrie Sheffield describes the context in which Allende wrote her first and most popular novel, The House of the Spirits.

Next, a collection of essays on key works and subjects deepens readers' understanding of Allende. The House of the Spirits is treated by Sara E. Cooper, who uses family systems theory to explicate the novel's major themes, and Barbara Foley Buedel considers the magical realist aspects of Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna. Linda S. Maier and Cherie Meacham both explore Paula, with Maier focusing on how the memoir acted as a catharsis for Allende and...