Isabel Allende: 'The theme of refugees is in the air, in the news, in the collective consciousness. It cannot be ignored'

Isabel Allende's My Name Is Emilia Del Valle - translated by Frances Riddle - is a historical romance set in the 1800s. (Isabel Allende photo credit: Lori Barra via Bloomsbury India)

Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende had to leave Chile in the mid-1970s, after Salvador Allende's government was toppled in a coup and it became unsafe for her family to remain in the country. Socialist leader and Chile's 28th president, Salvador Allende was her father's first cousin.

Though forced to leave the country as a young woman, Isabel Allende has often revisited Chile's history in her novels, starting with her first book - 'The House of the Spirits', published in Barcelona in 1982 - which she began as a letter to her grandfather.

In her latest novel, 'My Name Is Emilia del Valle', Allende again returns to Chile's past. The book is set in 1891, when a civil war broke out in the country. "The armed forces split," Allende told Moneycontrol, "the army went with the government and the navy with the opposition, and we had a bloody civil war in which more Chileans died in a few months than in the four years of the war against Peru and Bolivia."

In an email interview, Allende spoke about why she set her latest novel in 1891, about writing as an immigrant, and where she gets her inspiration for the magic realism in her books.

More than 3.6 percent of the world population today are immigrants, and UNHCR figures show that over 120 million are forcibly displaced. You, of course, had to leave Chile in the 1970s, after Salvador Allende's government fell. Has the way you approach the immigrant experience in your books changed over the years, especially in response to rising instances of displacement and humans in need of refuge?

I have been eternally displaced. I was born in Peru, raised in Chile and followed my stepfather in his travels as a diplomat. After the military coup I went into exile in Venezuela and 13 years later, I was an immigrant in the United States.

I am always visiting everywhere, even in Chile, where I have not lived for half a century. In most of my books you can find displaced people. Sometimes by force, other times by choice. In my second novel, 'Of Love and Shadows', published in Spanish in 1987, the protagonists escape repression during the dictatorship in Chile and go into exile. 'A Long Petal of the Sea' (2019) is the story of a refugee from the Spanish Civil War who ends up in Chile. 'The Wind Knows my Name' (2023) is the story of a little blind Salvadorian immigrant girl who is separated at the US border from her mother.

As you can see, this topic has appeared in my writing for decades and my approach has changed according to the requirements of each book.

More and more young writers seem to be tapping into their own immigrant experiences. Just since January 2025, we've had 'Good Girl' by Aria Aber and 'The Persians' by Sanam Mahloudji in English. What is your take on this — is there more fiction centred on the immigrant experience today compared with the 1970s and '80s, when you started writing?

I don’t have enough information to answer this question. My gut feeling is that there is more literature and art in general about this because displaced people have become a global reality and the numbers will only increase, not only due to violence and poverty, also due to climate change that will force more and more people to leave their places of origin. The theme of refugees is in the air, in the news, in the collective consciousness. It cannot be ignored.

You said in a recent interview that a lot of your characters are based on people you know — your extended family. Why is that?

I based my first novel on the anecdotes of several of my maternal relatives, starting with the protagonist, Clara del Valle, who was modelled after by my clairvoyant grandmother. With relatives like mine, I don’t need imagination, they provide all the inspiration and magic realism that I will ever need.

Of course, after the book was published, some members of my family recognized themselves in those pages and they didn’t speak to me for years. Some didn’t like at all my version of their lives, others didn’t agree with my politics.

However, when the movie of 'The House of the Spirits' was released in l995, it became the official story of the family and now the photographs of Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep are on the mantlepieces of some of my relatives.

'My Name is Emilia del Valle' starts in the 1800s. What about this period interested you, to back to it in fiction?

I was interested in the civil war in Chile in l891 because it has similarities with the military coup of l973, which I experienced. In both cases a progressive president whose policies benefitted the workers and the poor and threatened the foreign companies that controlled the mines in the north, were confronted by a fierce opposition. In l891 the armed forces split, the army went with the government and the navy with the opposition, and we had a bloody civil war in which more Chileans died in a few months than in the four years of the war against Peru and Bolivia. In  l973 the armed forces supported the opposition, we had a military coup followed by seventeen years of dictatorship. In both instances the president committed suicide.