Conversations with Isabel Allende: Revised Edition

by John Rodden (Editor), Isabel Allende (Introduction)

Overview

This revised edition has been updated to cover Allende's three newest books—City of the Beasts, Portrait in Sepia: A Novel, and Daughter of Fortune. It includes four new interviews in which Allende discusses completing her trilogy of novels that began with House of the Spirits, as well as her ongoing spiritual adventure and political interests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292702110
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	02/01/2004
Series:	Texas Pan American
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Rodden, of Austin, Texas, is the author and editor of eight books, including Performing the Literary Interview, Lionel Trilling and the Critics, and The Worlds of Irving Howe.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Foreword to the First Edition by Isabel Allende
• Chronology of Isabel Allende's Life and Works
• Introduction
• Note on the Selections
• 1. Pirate, Conjurer, Feminist (Marjorie Agosín)
• 2. Chile's Troubadour (Magdalena García Pinto)
• 3. Isabel Allende Unveiled (Douglas Foster)
• 4. Beginnings (Ilan Stavans)
• 5. "The Responsibility to Tell You" (John Rodden)
• 6. An Overwhelming Passion to Tell the Story (Elyse Crystall, Jill Kuhnheim, and Mary Layoun)
• 7. Love and Tears (Ignacio Carrión)
• 8. "Something Magic in the Storytelling" (Jan Goggans)
• 9. Writing from the Belly (Michael Toms)
• 10. Magical Feminist (Jennifer Benjamin and Sally Engelfried)
• 11. "Listen, Paula" (Alfred Starkmann)
• 12. After Paula (John Rodden)
• 13. "I Leave My Books to Their Fate" (John Rodden)
• 14. The Writer as Exile, and Her Search for Home (John Rodden)
• 15. "I Remember Emotions, I Remember Moments" (Virginia Invernizzi)
• 16. A Universal Message (Jan Garden Castro)
• 17. A Face in a Crowd (Katy Butler)
• 18. "Living in the Moment" (Elizabeth Heathcote)
• 19. "Self-Portrait in Sepia" (Cristen Reat)
• For Further Reading: Annotated Bibliography
• Index

Editorial Reviews

YA-"I belong to the first generation of writers brought up reading other Latin American writers," says Allende, alluding to the popularity of such writers as Gabriel Garc a M rquez, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Borges, and Pablo Neruda. In this compelling collection of 34 chronologically arranged interviews, the Chilean writer comes alive, and the book becomes, in the words of its editor, a "biography on the pulse." Allende discusses her personal, spiritual, political, and literary life. Her reflections on her years of political exile in Venezuela and on the illness and death of her daughter include not only her personal struggle and pain, but also their impact on her writing. Allende talks at length about each of her works, and while most of the interviews have been previously published in scholarly journals, her candor and wit and the relaxed, conversational tone of her responses couch these sophisticated literary discussions in a most palatable form for young adults. The chronological order of the interviews necessitates some repetition, but also gives readers a clear picture of Allende's evolution as a writer from her youth as a journalist to her middle years as a novelist. Most teens will use this work as a reference or study guide, but many will find themselves enthralled with the fascinating story of a politically committed and dedicated writer, mother, and wife.-Cathy Horowitz, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

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