Isabel Allende on love, loss and loyalty
Isabel Allende is a writer who can claim to be one of South America鈥檚 best-known global icons.
She knows the continent well: born in Peru, raised in Chile, she was schooled in Bolivia and also lived in Venezuela.
Her uncle was Salvador Allende, the Chilean leader ousted by General Pinochet in a 1973 coup which forced Isabel to flee the country.
Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Discussing her latest novel Violeta, Allende tells Zeinab Badawi why loss, grief, love and pain feature so strongly in her writing.
鈥淚 have been displaced all my life," she says. 鈥淚 write about violence, death, love, exile, loyalty, organic justice. Those are the things that keep coming back."
鈥淚 like to explore those events that were like crossroads in my life鈥�.
