Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read authors in the world.
Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she won international acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, which began as a letter to her dying grandfather. Since then, she has authored twenty-eight books which have been translated into more than forty languages. She has received multiple awards and fifteen honorary doctorates, including one from Harvard University. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. In 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation and in 2024 she received the Bodley Medal from the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford.
