Isabel Allende

I've had quite a bit more reading time than usual while we've been here in Chile--between my own reading, the books I've read with the girls during school time (I'm only counting real chapter books here), and Jonathan reading out to us at bedtime, I've almost finished 15 books since the beginning of 2015.   In my normal life I'm lucky if I get through that many books in a full year.  (Note to future self:  too busy to read = too busy.)

I'm not so sure why it took me this long to look up a Chilean author.  I guess I had a lot of other books in my queue, and for one reason or another it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I started pitching around to find some writing about this place.  After discovering a couple of poorly written memoirs by Americans, chronicling their adventures trekking across South America (that, in the end, I couldn't motivate myself to plow through), I googled "Top Chilean Authors" and up popped a list of ten novelists.  Unsurprisingly I was drawn to the females among them, and thus landed upon Isabel Allende.

Her first two (and most popular) novels are not available in Kindle form, so I ended up with her book called "Paula."  I didn't realize when I purchased it, but this book turned out to be her memoir, started as a letter to her critically ill daughter who was in a coma at the time, and which spun into a full-length book.

Wow.

I am completely smitten with this woman and her writing.  How did I get this far in life without knowing her work?  I'm completely ruined for reading anything now, because nothing measures up to that level.

And the way that she talks about Chile, and Santiago, and the fact that during the military coup she conducted a lot of her clandestine activities up on San Cristobal--my San Cristobal! where I've been hiking multiple times per week since we arrived here!--just brings it right on home.  I knew about the military coup, but reading about it through her experience enabled me to really understand a lot more of what went on here.

I can't wait to get my hands on her earlier books--House of the Spirits, City of the Beasts, and Eva Luna: A Novel.  I plan to order them on amazon so they are sitting on my doorstep when I arrive back in Pittsburgh in a few weeks.

I should probably explore some of the other award-winning authors who call this place home, but Isabel Allende will keep me pleasantly tied up for awhile.