“I never said I wanted a 'happy' life but an interesting one. From separation and loss, I have learned a lot. I have become strong and resilient, as is the case of almost every human being exposed to life and to the world. We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward.”

Chilean-American writer

Isabel Allende is a Chilean-American writer known for her fiction and for novels that often use elements of magical realism. Her work includes The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, both of which found wide commercial success. She has been described as the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author. In 2004, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She later received Chile’s National Literature Prize in 2010 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.