Isabel Allende likes to start the day very early. She says that in the gloom of dawn her senses awaken and she organizes her thoughts to undertake the imaginary worlds that she, for more than 40 years, has created for millions of readers around the world.
"Before I could write for ten hours straight and, when I got up from my chair, all my bones hurt. Even my teeth hurt. Now I can't do that," says Allende, laughing, from his home in California.
At 81 years old, Allende says that she has seen it all in a life marked by challenges, exiles, creative bets, and a successful career as a novelist that has elevated her as one of the inescapable literary voices of Latin America.
Their stories revolve around recurring themes such as love, violence, organic justice, redemption and friendship. "There are certain things that move me a lot. Solidarity, those people who are capable of sacrificing everything to help another. That moves me tremendously and appears in many of my books," she explains.
However, Allende, who was also a journalist before starting her literary career at age 40, is a keen observer of current events. She does not take refuge in an ivory tower, on the contrary, her work is nourished by the contemporary world with her tragedies and exploits. And she, sometimes, she doesn't like what she sees.
"There is anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and in the world, because there are more and more people who have to be displaced. They leave their countries of origin due to extreme violence or extreme poverty. And it is a problem that is growing right now. There is more than 110 million refugees in the world and the majority are women and children. This is a problem that is not going to be solved by putting guards on the border or barbed wire. It is going to be solved when the circumstances that force people to leave and improve in their countries of origin," he asserts with a deep look.
Isabel Allende together with Frederick
Allende has lived in the United States since 1988, more specifically in California, which is his home after a long journey in which he had to leave Chile, his homeland, due to the rise of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Fleeing the horror of the military regime that left more than 40,000 victims including murdered people, missing people, political prisoners and tortured people, the writer lived for a few years in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, where she was a freelance journalist for the newspaper El Nacional, while she began her foray into the literary jungle.
["In Latin America the bad guys get their way": Sergio Ramírez talks about the tyranny of Nicaragua, exile and its literature]
"When I left Chile as a political refugee, I went to Venezuela, which was a country that welcomed immigrants and refugees from all over the world. An open, generous, hospitable and rich country. Today there are almost 6 million Venezuelans who "They have left the country for the same reasons that other people came to Venezuela before. The most notable case is Colombia, where so many Colombians came to Venezuela and now it is the Venezuelans who go to Colombia," he comments on his long stay, from 1975 to 1988, in Venezuela.
Isabel Allende in her home in Caracas, where she wrote 'The House of the Spirits', on February 5, 1985. FELIPE AMILIBIA / AFP via Getty Images
"This is a country made of immigrants"
When asked what has changed in the United States since she arrived in the late 1980s, Allende narrows her eyes and talks about figures, like the good reporter she is.
"It's the numbers that have changed. And precisely because the numbers have increased so much, there are many more restrictions and much more anti-foreigner sentiment. Anyone who comes from somewhere else is frowned upon, especially if they are a person of color. Now, If they were white people from Scandinavia in the United States, I'm sure they would be better welcomed than us Latinos," she states forcefully.
Since 2003, Allende has been a US citizen and her interest in the country's political and cultural debates is evident in her public interventions in which she usually advocates the value of migration and the enormous challenge it implies for current governments.
"The immigrant contributes much more to the country than he receives."
Isabel Allende writer
"I think there has to be a global policy, a national policy and a cultural policy so that people understand that immigrants contribute much more to the country than they receive. This is a country made of immigrants and the second generation, the third generation , they are already citizens and they contribute a lot to the United States," he asserts.
As is already known, the United States is in an electoral campaign and migration is one of the big issues. Allende has been attentive to the proposals of the main political leaders who aspire to the presidency and she believes that, in the past, there are ideas that could help the implementation of other immigration policies.
Multiple awards and millions of copies sold place the Chilean writer as one of the most important voices in Latin American literature. Acey Harper / Getty Images
"There are many jobs in the United States that no American wants to do for any money in the world. There are many industries that are very difficult, besides agriculture, and that is why we need immigrants. There should be work permits like there were in times past in which people came, worked for a season, sent money to their families and could enter and leave the country. There could be a system with some openness for people who come to work," he comments.
A new challenge
Winner of important awards such as the National Prize for Literature in Chile, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the USA, and the Literary Prize of the PEN USA Center, among others, Allende is considered the most read Latin American author in the world. and his books have sold more than 70 million copies, which confirms the devotion that his stories awaken among readers.
"I am always certain that I am a communicator. I want to connect with my reader, but I do not write to satisfy a trend or a special moment. I write for something that I feel very deeply at a certain moment and, sometimes, I don't even know why I have to write that book. Sometimes the topic is up in the air like refugees and children separated from their parents. That's why I wrote
The Wind Knows My Name
, because through my foundation I saw so many cases that the only thing I could do was to write about it," he explains about his creative process.
[Mexican writer Brenda Navarro offers another look at migration in her new book: “There is violence everywhere”]
These days, the author has decided to face the challenge of writing stories for children. And, as part of her writing process, every Tuesday and Thursday she receives a visit from a demanding literary critic: Camila, a 4-year-old girl to whom she reads what she writes.
Isabel Allende, singer Aretha Franklin, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, during a ceremony at Harvard University, on May 29, 2014. Rick Friedman / Corbis via Getty Images
"I just wrote three short stories for little children. They are those illustrated books that parents read to their children. And it was a beautiful challenge because when Camila goes to the house for me to read to her, I can see how she falls in love with the characters. It was a nice stimulus," she comments about her new project, whose first delivery is scheduled for mid-year and will be titled
Perla, la super perrita
.
—What should a children's story by Isabel Allende have?
—It has to be a very simple story, and one that has something to do with what the child cares about. Let's say that the child is afraid of the dark, then we have to make a story in which we challenge the fear of the dark, understand it and present it in a way that the child understands it. The first story is about a dog who has two superpowers. One is that she makes everyone love her and the other is that she roars like a lion. And the story is about bullying because many children suffer from feeling excluded or that they don't belong and that they are abused in some way.
—Was there talk of that type of abuse when you went to school?
—They didn't talk about that, the term didn't exist. I grew up without it existing, and I never heard of it. The word feminism, for example, and the word
bullying
are very new. And the concept of the child who suffers at school or anywhere is only now being accepted and we are attacking it from all sides. But before, they only suffered. Children who were dyslexic were not known, they said they were stupid because they could not learn to read or write. Now we know how to treat dyslexia. In that sense we have made a lot of progress.
—You have always advocated feminism and the defense of women's rights, in fact, it is one of the objectives of your foundation. What do you think are the great social achievements and rights that are in danger at this moment for women?
—This fight began last century, and it moves forward and backwards, but it is always moving forward. What is the ultimate goal of feminism? Replace patriarchy with a system, a different civilization in which there is gender parity, in which feminine values have the same weight as masculine values. That is the ultimate goal and to achieve it is a relentless fight that will take much longer than the years of my life. I'm not going to see it and maybe my granddaughters aren't going to see it, but here we go. There is more education and the young generations no longer endure what our grandmothers or mothers endured.
What is the ultimate goal of feminism? Replace patriarchy with a system, a different civilization in which there is gender parity."
—Regarding the global debate of feminism and women's rights, what do you think is at stake in the United States right now?
—Movements like MeToo have emerged, which sometimes become extreme, but it has to be that way. This is a revolution and in revolutions there is no map. One does not follow a manual, one improvises and makes mistakes and goes back and forth. And you always have to be vigilant because there is no excuse for everything to go back. What has happened in the United States is that the right to plan your family, that is, not only abortion, but also contraceptives are at their peak, as they say in Venezuela. All. And this is something that directly affects women and the entire society.
—In your opinion, how has the perception of the Latino community changed in recent years in the US? It is said that there is more representation, but peaks in xenophobia and hate crimes have also been recorded. Do you think the rhetoric of political campaigns has any effect on that?
—Exactly, there is an anti-immigrant discourse. There is racist discourse against people of color and against anyone who is poor. So, when social media, social networks, the press and politicians are talking about that discourse, logically we can fall into a very serious fascist regime.
—Do you feel hopeful about a new electoral cycle or are you concerned about the proposals of some candidates on issues such as migration?
—Well, to begin with, Trump considers that immigrants are not people and he has expressly said so. I mean, it's not something that I'm inventing right now. So any policy of theirs is going to be even more draconian than separating children from their parents, for example. And you have to be very careful with that. I believe that the country needs immigrants.
—Last year,
The House of the Spirits
and
Beyond Winter
were two of your novels that entered the list of books removed from schools in Orange County, Florida. Although this is not the first time that one of your works has been banned, why do you think this recent decision was made?
—The
spirit house
was banned several years ago. It first happened in Chile when it came out, and a few years ago it was also banned in North Carolina, because all it takes is for a parent to complain and they will remove the book from the library. But one teacher who defends it is also enough for the book to return to the library, and that is what happened then. And why did it happen now? Because now there is a turn to the right in Florida and elsewhere there has been this thing between religious and extreme right of banning books. Not only are they mine, but many. Deep down it is almost an honor that they at least notice that the book exists. It doesn't affect me at all.
Literature brings us closer to people (...) that's why I think it will always exist."
Isabel Allende Writer
—In
The Wind Knows My Name
, the characters are determined by historical circumstances that surpass them, and migration plays a very important role. Can literature provide another perspective to topics as debated as immigration policies?
—What literature has is that it brings us closer to people. If they tell me that there are 100 million refugees in the world, it is a number and means little. Until I meet one, when I know his story, his name and everything that has happened to him, then I can put myself in his role.
The Wind Knows My Name
is the story of a girl who is separated from her mother at the border and the girl is blind. When they talk to me about the thousands of separated children, they are also numbers. Until you think of a certain child and know that it could be your son or his grandson. Everything changes when you can personally relate to something. Literature makes us see things from an angle we had never expected, and that is wonderful. That is why literature will always exist.
Isabel Allende at a literary event held in Boston, during the presentation tour of 'Paula', on April 26, 1995. Boston Globe / Boston Globe via Getty Images
—Latin America is going through a turbulent time on a political level, with left-wing and right-wing governments with authoritarian tendencies. Are you, who lived through the rise of a dictatorship that forced you to leave Chile, optimistic about the future of democratic governments in the region?
—Today we are much better than before. When I left Chile, 50% of the Latin American population lived under a generally military dictatorship, very repressive, in which people disappeared and there was massive torture. Now we have known decades of weak and often conditioned democracies, but democracies. And I believe that these authoritarian and fascist tendencies come and go with the law of the pendulum. The same is happening in Europe. And in my 80 years I have seen a lot, so I don't lose hope. I think we are moving forward, not going backwards.
—In such a conflictive world where readers are bombarded with information and data, what is the challenge of writing stories that compete with all those stimuli?
—It is proven that young people grow up afraid of the page because they see everything on a screen, even in school, homework, everything is on a screen. Then they come across a book and they get scared because they're not used to the pages, so it's harder to get them to read. But literature has a function and even if the medium changes, even if you hear it on audio, even if you read it digitally, it still has a function and continues to exist. And the proof is that now more books are published than ever and all those books are sold somewhere. There are readers who read in a hurry, but they read.
—What does Isabel Allende still have to write?
I always said I wanted to write an erotic novel, but as long as my mother was alive she couldn't do it. And my mom lived to be 98 (laughs). So by the time I was free to do it, she was no longer hormonal. And, frankly, the topic doesn't interest me that much now.