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Isabel Allende

18 fiction

Isabel Allende is a Chilean-American novelist, memoirist and journalist whose writing combines family history, political upheaval, exile and magical realism. Born in Peru and raised largely in Chile, she worked as a journalist before leaving the country following the military coup of 1973. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits, traces several generations of the Trueba family against a fictionalised version of twentieth-century Chilean history. Allende’s experiences of displacement and political violence recur throughout her fiction, alongside themes of memory, migration, feminism and the survival of women under repressive social systems.

Her historical novels range across Latin America, Europe and the United States. Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia follow interconnected families between nineteenth-century Chile and Gold Rush California, while Inés of My Soul fictionalises the life of Inés Suárez during the Spanish conquest of Chile. Island Beneath the Sea centres on an enslaved woman during the Haitian Revolution, and A Long Petal of the Sea follows Spanish Republican refugees who build new lives in Chile after the Spanish Civil War. Other historically grounded works include Zorro, The Japanese Lover, Violeta, The Wind Knows My Name and My Name Is Emilia del Valle, which explores journalism, identity and the Chilean Civil War of 1891.

Periods and events

Gilded Age Californiac. 1870–1912 CE Vietnam War1955–1975 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Isabel Allende (2 series)

The House of the Spirits Trilogy in Order

by Isabel Allende 3 books 4.2(544,315)

The House of the Spirits Trilogy forms a connected Chilean family saga across more than a century. Daughter of Fortune begins in nineteenth-century Valparaíso and the California Gold Rush; Portrait in Sepia follows the next generation through war, migration and memory; The House of the Spirits carries related…

Eagle and Jaguar Trilogy in Order

by Isabel Allende 3 books 3.8(48,108)

The Eagle and Jaguar Trilogy follows American teenager Alexander Cold and Brazilian guide Nadia Santos through three international expeditions. Their journeys move from the Amazon to a Himalayan kingdom and then to equatorial Africa, combining ecological adventure with magical identities represented by the jaguar and eagle. Written for…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by Isabel Allende (12 books)

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