Isabel Allende: I am an eternal foreigner. I was born in Peru, raised in Chile. I have been a political refugee after the military coup in Chile and an immigrant. I followed my step father in his travels as a diplomat when I was a teenager. So I don’t have roots anywhere. And I think that that’s very good for a writer because as a writer and as a person, I don’t take anything for granted. I’m always asking questions. And in the questions, I get the answers and I get friends. And I think that that’s how Amy and I became friends, because we share a lot in common, that sense of being. Although she was born in the United States and I was not. We are both torn by a double culture, by being bicultural, in my case, also bilingual. And I think she is bilingual, too, because she she speaks Chinese. And so where do we belong? Who are we? We don’t feel totally uncomfortable, totally comfortable here or there. My way of dealing with it is that I take the best of both places. I don’t give up anything. I want everything. I don’t take anything for granted. I am always curious. I’m I observe carefully. I listen carefully. I take notes. And I think that being bicultural is is an asset for a writer. It gives you. Curiosity. You want to ask questions, you want to understand deeply and in the answers, you get stories. So I think that that’s what Amy has been doing. She observes her mother on her ends and the culture and what draws her back to the old china. And and at the same time, she totally belongs here. So it’s in the contrast in the complexity that she finds her language and her inspiration.

Interviewer: You do you remember? Is there. Q And when? When did you first realize that you wanted to just sort of take your curiosity? What was going to make you in a room? Because you were you spent a lot of time in journalism. And, you know, I’d love to hear about the impulse to you. Do you do you remember when you said, you know what? I have to do this? Like, is it simply writers? It’s not. It’s it’s it have to do it, you know, it’s just there comes a moment where they realize this is just what I have to do. And I wasn’t sure if that was something that happened when you were younger or, you know, fictional storytelling came first or was it really, you know, trying to capture the issues of the day, you know, trying to to be a part of the contemporary culture as a journalist and can be. Can you recall, like, that moment where you’re like, I think this is going to be a big part of my life, like to remember.

Isabel Allende: That there was no moment when I said, I want to be a writer. I was always a liar and a teller of a storyteller. When I was little, I was called a liar. Now that I make a living with this lies, I’m a I’m a writer and narrator, you know, I have some respect. And as a journalist, I was a lousy journalist because I had too much imagination. And I was making up stories and putting myself in the middle of everything and putting words in the in the mouth of my interviewees. So it wasn’t as I said, I was a lousy journalist. But the craft of journalism gave me something essential, gave me the use of language, efficient use of language, and how to communicate, how to reach the reader, how to grab the reader by the neck and get the reader’s attention and not to the very end. And that, I think, has been very important in my own writing career. But I never said I want to be a writer. It just happened. I was living in exile. I couldn’t work as a journalist. I was stuck with all these stories that were suffocating me. And then I started writing a letter for my grandfather that eventually turned into a manuscript of 560 pages. And that was my first novel. And I think that the craft that one has before is important. Amy also work with words, with communicating, with and with making language as efficient as possible and that you can use in writing. I don’t know if Amy ever said I want to be a writer. She was in, in writing, in, in workshops and writing stories. And then somehow the Joy Luck Club got together like. Like a puzzle, almost. And I think that with the House of the Spirits, my book was the same. Yeah, just a bunch of stories, sometimes even disconnected. That ended up being a novel. Well, I didn’t. I never said this is my career. I’m going to make a living with this. It didn’t happen that way. It was one word at a time. One book at a time. Slowly.

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. Especially. Well, it’s it’s interesting, too, that Amy. Amy describes it. If I was to think about it, mean, you know, how much how much is really a man of her character starting to write this really personal self-exploration, you know, just yeah. Really for herself, you know? And she tells her story. And maybe you’ve heard about being in a way, your mom, she got to call her mom and had a heart attack in San Francisco. And she rushed back. And on the way back, she kept telling yourself all along that she she survived this. I promise I’ll listen to your stories for once, so I’ll do a better job or I’ll do it. I will do all these things. I’ll get to know you. And one thing I know, we’ve had a hard time, you know, all these promises. And then she got and then she finds out that, well, she didn’t have a heart attack. She had a she was angry at the fishmonger’s and that she was stuck having made this vow. So, you know, that was sort of the beginning of, you know, trying to understand her family and clearly her family, not only the weather. Wow. It’s it’s pretty back to back. It’s such a big part of her, you know, the source for her storytelling. But it seems like it’s as much as anything. And I wondered how you felt about your own biography. And has has it been do you feel that your being a writer has been part and parcel? Just is there a separation between your storytelling and your own coming to understand your own life and your own past and world?

Isabel Allende: I only I think I only write about those things I really care for. So in a way, it’s always an exploration of oneself, because why am I obsessed with certain certain themes? It’s because they have been relevant in my life and death, violence, love, separation, losses, loyalty, courage. Those are the things that keep coming back in everything I write. And so, in a way, maybe every author. Has the same need to understand their own lives. And I think that by writing so much about my country and my family, I’m trying to find out from where I come and who what are the elements that were relevant to make me the person I am today. All my experiences and I have used them all. There’s nothing private in my life to the point that my son has begged me never to write a memoir again, because then his secrets are all exposed. So he doesn’t want that. But in my in my case, I need to write about everything, and I don’t mind sharing it at all.

Interviewer: Do you, by the way, just as an aside, you know Julia Alvarez.

Isabel Allende: I know her. I’m not a friend. We have never had that chance. But I have met her.

Interviewer: Yes. She’s a dear friend of my mom’s back in Vermont. Yeah. She tells a funny story when she wrote her memoir. Her mother, who was sending the parallels to the family, shared her, but she agreed to pay for Julia’s lawyer.

Isabel Allende: Yeah, yeah. That’s a Latino family.

Interviewer: So. Well, you know, I think the idea of. Yeah. I think he had a career. I think it might come from your website. Something about the churches or the senators, you know, who? We’re not sheltered by society. I think you mentioned that. Unconventional.

Isabel Allende: Yeah.

Interviewer: Irreverent. I’m aware that that aspect of it is that. Is that just part of because of because of your family chief generation history or is it, say, a trait? It’s a personality trait. I mean, obviously, having, you know, having read some of their work. They are they are absolutely explosive characters. And it’s what makes it so excited. And she can’t predict anything. And there is someone around it between so many different not only emotions, but impulses and desires. And it’s all out there. And I wondered if that was something that when you when you talk about sort of your own family, how much of that how much do you see that as a child of the culture of, you know, coming from South America? How much of that is is it just in the nature of your broader family network?

Isabel Allende: Well, with a family like mine, you don’t need to invent anything. They themselves just alone. They provide all the magic realism that you might need for this, for the House of the Spirits and the other books. So I keep going back to the two characters in my family. But when when I say that I write about people who are in the margins, who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment, is because those are the people who are interesting. Those are the people who have interesting lives. They survived trauma. They get back on their knees after they have lost everything. They they need to find in their in themselves the courage and the strength to overcome everything. Why would a person who has everything needs to be interesting for a writer? It’s it’s I don’t think it is. And that’s the same in Amy’s work. Who are the characters in Amy’s work, her family and people who really have gone through hell and somehow have come out of it and with their idiosyncrasies on their craziness. And they’re all lunatics but wonderful lunatics. And those are the characters we want.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Isabel Allende: Yeah. And I don’t think it’s a it’s a conscious choice. It’s the way it is, because we are surrounded by those people. We belong there in a way. We are one of them. I have never felt that I could write a psychological novel about a couple who is going through some couples therapy in a suburb. Because I like the epic story, this saga, the world that gets in and the people who get in the world. That is what I’m interested in.

Interviewer: Do you recall the first time? Did you just find a book of babies in the in the bookstore? Have you encountered her writing that first time, do you remember?

Isabel Allende: Yeah. She had just published just published the Joy Luck Club and the owner of a bookstore in my neighborhood. Elaine Petrocelli, owner of Book Passage, said, this is a great book. She always selected select books. For me, this has been going on for more than 30 years. She chooses books for me, and often I read books in manuscript or in galleys because she gets them. And for example, I read Hosseini’s book, The Kite Runner in a manuscript, and I read Amy. I don’t remember if it was in a galley or it was just published. But I met her right after that and someone introduced me to her. She was this young, lovely woman. I said, She just wrote a book. And I said, The Joy Luck Club. I read the book and she got to believe that I had already read it. And that was the beginning of a friendship.

Interviewer: I just, you know, in hearing you talk about your writing and and what inspires you and it really does strike me, particularly when you talk about overcoming adversity, you know, as something that would be such a unifying experience to both of you. And I am just I am really interested. Do you think that is to reach a very, very strong audiences? I mean. Oh, it’s not to say that that other. Well, Asian American writers, Asian writers, you know, have have not done so. Certainly, Amy, it seems to me, did so more broadly than any other. Yes. Yes. And as well as as you’re as as is your work, which, you know, is is global a treat? I mean, and I wonder, you know, when you talk about these qualities of overcoming AIDS, what do you what would you think might be the elements? What is it that allows you an enemy to break through? What do you think things are similar in that it causes you to be able to reach outside of your of your culture?

Isabel Allende: I think.

Interviewer: Anyone.

Isabel Allende: I think that Amy and myself, we write about emotions and relationships and those are universal. So she can place those relationships and those emotions in a Chinese family in China. And I can do that in Chile. And it’s still universal because considering the differences in in culture or language or race or whatever, we all feel the same. And my books are translated to 42 languages, as are Amy’s. And in every language they work because people identify. I get letters from Bulgaria or Finland. Oh, and the letter says, My family is just like yours. How did you know about my uncle? Because they are all the uncles are the same. So in a way, what makes it universal? Also, I have to say good translations, good publishers that take care of their dition and good luck because so many extraordinary books that are out there that don’t don’t get the recognition or them or the world wide success that sometimes a book gets, you know, it’s luck also. But in Amy’s case, it’s so interesting because we can all identify with those mothers that she describes with with the losses, how many losses and and the and the coincidences, the fact that that you think that your life is going in one direction and you encounter some one by coincidence and everything changes the crossroads, the destiny, a sense that we don’t control our lives, that that things happen. Don’t we all feel that way sometime? Not only Americans, don’t I? Yeah. Americans think. You know, Americans think that they can control everything. They can explain everything. But in the rest of the world, it’s not like that.

Interviewer: I just wanted to wondered how your experience was and continuing to write after her sister. When I feel pressure, like even giving a lot of pressure.

Isabel Allende: Yeah, I. Sorry. And after the House of the Spirits was published, it was a big success in Europe immediately. It was the third book in the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1982, and I was living in Caracas far away from everything. I had no idea of what was going on. And my agent has said the writer is proven in the second book. So I started writing a second book without having the noise of the house of the spirits in my head. Then a year later, I got the first checks and more contracts and more translations and stuff, but I still was very isolated in Caracas. I think I would have been terrified if I had known that that that there were all these expectations about the second book. And I didn’t have time to worry. I was already writing the second one. But I understand that the second book is the most difficult one to write always. If you have been successful with the first one.

Interviewer: Do you feel like in what ways that it impacts your daily life in relationships with other people that coming at you? Did you start to get cynical about people? Where were you? You know, people wanting favours, you know? You know what happens to people? Yeah. But she described how you jumped on top of that a little bit.

Isabel Allende: As I said before, I was living in Venezuela. I was far away from the noise of success. And then I wrote a second book and a third book. And on my third book, I came to the United States on a book tour. First book tour or second yeah. First or second book tour in the United States because the book had just been translated and I met a guy fell in love with a guy, moved to his house without an invitation and forced him into marriage because I planned to stay with him and I wanted to sponsor my children. So my life changed because my situation, personal situation changed, but there was no public success yet. And then it was when when my work started to get really famous in Europe and I was invited to Europe. I would see that in Europe, especially Germany, Italy, Spain. I would confront that very briefly and then come back home. And then slowly it got to build up in the United States. I wouldn’t say that my personal life changed that much because it didn’t. And today. I have a public life, but it doesn’t affect my private life. It happens in the periphery and I’m still the same person. I have the still the same friends, very few friends. I like dogs much more than people. And and I have a life, a private life. So I don’t think that success has changed me as it’s changed your father, because a writer, you know, has so much more private person. If a man like like Robert Redford, everybody in the world knows his face. He can’t walk in the street without being recognized. Not my case and not the case of almost any writer, because people get the book, they don’t get a picture. So it’s not that bad. And we are not rock stars, although Amy is a rock star.

Interviewer: Yes. Yes. Have you ever seen her perform?

Isabel Allende: Yeah. She’s crazy. I mean, I love it. And she. What I love about about Amy is that she can tackle anything. She will she will take the risk of getting on stage and singing and being a rock star on stage. And she will. She will do anything. Now she’s drawing and painting everything she does. She does beautifully, and her art is exquisite. So if she decides to climb the Everest, she will do it, because that’s the kind of person that she is. I remember that once we did. It’s a very strange trip, the four of us. She, her husband. My husband and I. Because it was some kind of kind of advertising for Jeeps or for some kind of vehicle. And so we went on excursion to the Four Corners and yeah, and we did the Four Corners with Amy camping. And it was fun. It was fun. And she would do anything. She would get on a horse, she would climb the the mount. And she would do anything.

Interviewer: And she does have that side. There’s no doubt about it.

Isabel Allende: Yeah, that is very, like, mischievous and and playful. I’m not at all like that. I’m a no, no, no, no. I’m not playful at all. I am. Spinster in many ways.

Interviewer: So you were just counting the hours to get back home?

Isabel Allende: Of course. To get to a proper bathroom. To get to the bathroom, for God’s sake. Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. Oh, it’s funny. You know, when she was writing it was she described a feeling of pressure, too. Once she did establish a public voice and was very well recognized that it fell on her to become sort of a champion or an advocate for justice. Um, social justice within the Asian-American community. Mm hmm. She wants to be seen as a writer, and she doesn’t want to be seen as the Asian American writer or, you know, she doesn’t want to be forced into being someplace that isn’t organically her. Um, and yet, at the same time, there’s plenty of really, you know, fantastic fiction writers who are involved. You know, and I get the sense, particularly maybe with your background, clinical background, it’s much more natural for you to be partaking in a political dialogue about injustices in South America, for instance.

Isabel Allende: Well, in in my case. I am politically active and I talk for my community, but not in my books. I have separated my activism from my writing completely. When I write, I feel absolutely free to tell a story any way I want. And I don’t hear any pressure. I don’t hear any voices, and I just write the story as I want to tell it. And then separately, I have a foundation in which I do all my activism and my philanthropy through the foundation, never trying to deliver a message or preach in my books that would ruin fiction. And I think that Amy has that very clear. Then the moment you start mixing these two things and preaching, then they are not writing fiction anymore or not good fiction. So. So I think for me, it has never been a question of hearing those voices. If I if I am if I get the pressure and the demand, I, I work around that in my private life, never in my writing. And no one has ever demanded it in my writing, ever that I can remember.

Interviewer: Yeah. And that’s really interesting when.

Isabel Allende: I think of this. It’s the same with Amy, because even if she has that pressure and she hears those voices, you don’t see that in her books. And even if it was in her books, they wouldn’t be so successful. Readers are not stupid. They don’t. Don’t underestimate the reader. If the reader feels that he’s he or she’s being preached at, they don’t like the book. They will drop it.

Interviewer: You’re so right. Yeah, that’s that’s a that’s a big challenge to documentary filmmakers as well. Of course. How do you tell a story, particularly with documentaries? Very often you’re advocating how do you do it in a way that you don’t instantly lose your credibility and people trust you?

Isabel Allende: Well, but we are always preaching to the choir, people who don’t think like you will not look at your documentary. People who don’t think like me will not read my books. Yeah, I get sometimes an independent here and there, but otherwise we are. I’m preaching to the choir. I know that.

Interviewer: The truly.

Isabel Allende: Interesting, especially now in this polarized society, which we live today.

Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. How we’re getting close to finishing up. I really appreciate your time at work. And how would you say you have a. What do you what did you teach? You have a routine for your writing.

Isabel Allende: I’m very disciplined. I start all my books on January 8th. Because I know it sounds crazy, but if I don’t have a date to start my books, I would be procrastinating forever. I have a complicated life, a lot of pressure from every side. So I need to set aside several months, a year of silence and solitude to write. How do I do that? By having a date to start. So my agents, my editors, my family, my friends, everybody knows that starting January 8th, I’m not available anymore. I’m writing. Then I write every day, including Sundays. I get up very early, usually around six, and I walk the dogs or whatever needs to be done before. And then I lock myself in the attic. I’m the crazy lady in the attic. And I. And I write to me writing. It’s just an orgy. I it’s never work. I love the process. I love correcting. Putting things together, going back, listening to the to the characters, changed the story constantly. I love the process. And so I write a lot and I correct a lot. And I am cruel with my own work. I cut, cut, cut. And I never share it. Not even my agents know what I’m writing or when I will be finished. They know when I start, but not when I will finish. And when I say I don’t share it because of what we were talking about. Amy, I don’t want to hear those voices telling me what to write or what I should correct or what should be this or that. It’s my story, and the only way that I can push everybody aside is by not sharing it. So it’s a very interesting, lonely, wonderful. Life. Second life. Or first life? Really? That’s my life. You know, my my grandchildren say that I have a village in my head and I live in the village.

Interviewer: Yeah. Thing is, if you have anything, you’re meeting anything so you’d like to give. It hasn’t come up in this conversation about Amy and her work or her writing or any observations she’d like to make.

Isabel Allende: I think that you said it, and Amy has become a voice for a group, a very important group of people, Chinese Americans, modern Chinese Americans, but linked to the past, with the roots, with the culture, with the dreams, with a collective consciousness. And that is such a wonderful thing that she has done to make it available to everybody. So I didn’t know anything about Chinese Americans except a bookkeeper that we had in the office, but he was completely Chinese. So reading Amy. I realized that, wow, these people are just like me, like my Latin American family. What’s the difference? I have. I mean, those grandmothers I like my grandmother. Those are the magic and the. And the superstition and the wonder. And the. And the mothers. The strong mothers. And the. It is the same. And that makes it so close, so personal, so touching in so many ways. And I think that’s what every reader feels anywhere in the world, in any language when they read Amy. You know, it was it was said of Garcia marquez that he wrote about an invented village. Macondo and Macondo became the universe. Everybody in every language has a macondo inside. Amy did that.

Interviewer: And. Fantastic.

Isabel Allende: It’s too bad she’s not writing anymore. Yeah, but she’s having a life and she’s doing other wonderful things.

Interviewer: Wonderful things? Yeah, I’ve gotten to know her. And that in and of itself has been so great.

Isabel Allende: She’s the most generous person in the world. She, any writer that comes through the Bay Area will end up in her house. She’s her house is open for writers. She’s always helping aspiring writers, new writers. She’s always giving advice. Spending time with people who have any need. And in that sense, she’s fantastic. Never. I have never seen in her any jealousy, any any pretension of any kind. She’s just open and generous.

Interviewer: I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. Amazing.

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