ALLENDE, ISABEL

born Aug. 2, 1942, Lima, Peru Chilean writer in the magic realist tradition who is considered one of the first successful woman novelists in Latin America. Allende worked as a journalist in Chile until she was forced to flee to Venezuela after the assassination (1973) of her uncle, Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens. In 1981 she began writing a letter to her terminally ill grandfather that evolved into her first novel, La casa de los espritus (1982; The House of the Spirits). It was followed by the novels De amor y de sombra (1984; Of Love and Shadows), Eva Luna (1987), and El plan infinito (1991; The Infinite Plan) and a collection of stories entitled Cuentos de Eva Luna (1990; The Stories of Eva Luna). Allende's works are written in the style of magic realism, which is the use of fantasy and myth in realistic fiction, and often portray South American politics. Her first four works reflect her own experiences and examine the role of women in Latin America. El plan infinito, however, is set in the United States, and its protagonist is male. Her first nonfiction work, Paula (1994; Eng. trans. 1995), was written as a letter to her daughter, who, afflicted with a hereditary blood disease, had fallen into a coma (she died in 1992).