A legendary woman with a magic pen.

Allende has written 15 books, three of which have not been published — and none of which she has read after completion. “It’s very boring to read something you wrote yourself,” she explains. “You know the story already! Once the book is out there, it’s gone. You can’t change a word, so what’s the point of reading it again?”

Her next book, recently completed and due in the spring of 2005, will tackle the legendary Spanish character Zorro. When the owners of the license of Zorro approached Allende with a proposal for a book about the origins of the legend, they gave her a box with videos, comic strips and other material about the masked hero. “I fell in love with the character,” says Allende.

It is not difficult to understand what attracts the writer to her character. “That time period is fascinating,” Allende says. “It is the time of the missions in Alta California and the Napoleonic wars in Europe. The character is born here, and his parents send him to Spain to get an education. So I have a story about this boy, Diego de la Vega, in both places: in America and Europe.”

The story of Isabel Allende, too, is set in two places: her native Chile, and the United States, her adopted home for the past 15 years. Through her writing she has been able to find the roots that give her a sense of belonging, a sense of home — wherever that is. With one foot in Chile and the other in California, Allende does not feel obliged to choose between the two places.

Allende first left Chile when she was nine years old, with her mother and stepfather, who was a diplomat. Their first destination was Bolivia, followed by the Middle East, Europe and the United States. In “My Invented Country,” Allende’s 2001 memoir, she reminisces that her childhood and adolescence were marked by journeys and farewells. It has also been determined largely by violence.

Allende’s second departure from Chile occurred after the fierce military coup of Sept. 11, 1973, that resulted in the death of her uncle, Chilean President Salvador Allende, and destroyed Chile’s long tradition of democratic rule. The coup ushered in a military dictatorship, headed by General Augusto Pinochet, that would last for 17 years.

In 1975, Isabel Allende once again said goodbye to family and friends and traveled to Caracas, Venezuela. She took with her a handful of Chilean soil from her garden. Her then-husband Miguel and their two children joined her a month later.

Allende could accredit her arrival as a writer to her two departures from Chile. Upon the first departure, Allende’s mother gave her a notebook to start a travel diary; to this day the author carries a notebook in her purse. Later, during her second exile, Allende began a letter to her beloved grandfather who was dying in Santiago, Chile’s capital city. When Allende finished the letter a year later, her grandfather had died but her first novel, “The House of the Spirits,” was born. The day she began that letter was Jan. 8, the impetus for what has become a special tradition of beginning writing projects on that day.

Since the publication of her first book, Isabel Allende has become one of the first Latina authors to achieve huge success in the English-speaking market. Her widespread popularity in the United States is impressive — she draws large crowds at every public appearance, lecture or speech that she makes. She explains her success humbly: “I have a good publisher — I always have — and a very good translator. I also have the good fortune of speaking English and being able to lecture, travel and promote my books. Here it is very difficult to sell anything in translation.”

Perhaps Allende’s duality of identity makes it easier for readers to relate to her. She is American, yes — she became a citizen last year — but she is also still very much Chilean. Over the years, her self-identification as a member of these two communities has evolved.

When she and Gordon married in 1987 and settled in California, Allende felt she would never fit in. “It was like I was being preserved from the pain of the world in this country. Things were too easy, and I’m not used to that. I also thought Americans were very spoiled. I don’t think that way anymore. There are still a lot of spoiled people but many more have massively lost their jobs.”

Sept. 11, already an important day in Allende’s personal and national histories, multiplied its meaning for the author in 2001. The second tragedy to change her life on that date ended up changing her relationship with the United States, as well.

While the first Sept. 11, in 1973, resulted in Allende’s exile from her homeland, the second Sept. 11 aligned herself more intimately with her adopted land and its people. Pain, violence and death drew Allende closer to other Americans in a way she had not experienced before. “I felt American for the first time. I could relate to the feelings most people had at the time, the certainty that life is not safe anywhere. Before, all the violence was in the movies and no one expected it to happen here. Now they do, and there is a sense of vulnerability.”

Perhaps the most personal of tragedies for Allende was the devastating loss of her 28-year-old daughter, Paula, in 1992, after a long illness. Following Paula’s death, Allende wrote “Paula,” a book she considers to be her memoir. Writing that book was Allende’s way of mourning and healing. “I could cry, I could laugh, I could remember,” she says. “Every word was a way of preserving the memory. Memory is so fragile. By writing it down, it will be there forever. I have often thought that when I get older and start losing my memory, I will read ‘Paula’ again. And I will remember my family, my country, my children.”

Thankfully, the wound has finally closed. “It is now a scar that will always be there. It reminds me constantly of something. It’s a proud scar. I can touch it. It doesn’t bother me; it is part of who I am today. I am a better person because of that. I look at myself in the mirror, and I am different. I aged 20 years in one year when my daughter was sick.”
Today, at 61, Allende is happy. “I always have been even in the worst moments,” she says. “Many times I have been on my knees and have hardly been able to get up. But because I have been able to get up many times I have become stronger. … Now I live one day at a time, one book at a time.”