Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. When her uncle, Chilean President Salvador Allende, was assassinated in 1973, she fled with her husband and children to Venezuela. Allende has written more than a dozen magical realist novels, including The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, as well as several memoirs. She has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has received Chile's National Literature Prize, a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement.