WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.200 So welcome back to the deep dive. Today we are 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:06.790 exploring the life the career, and honestly, 00:00:07.009 --> 00:00:09.550 the incredibly polarized world of Isabella Lende. 00:00:09.750 --> 00:00:11.949 Yeah, and it is a massive world to dive into. 00:00:12.050 --> 00:00:14.410 It really is. I mean, our mission for you today 00:00:14.410 --> 00:00:17.329 is to pull the most essential insights from a 00:00:17.329 --> 00:00:20.109 life that, well, it reads exactly like one of 00:00:20.109 --> 00:00:22.769 her own sprawling magical realism novels. Oh, 00:00:22.890 --> 00:00:26.469 completely. We're talking political exile, devastating 00:00:26.469 --> 00:00:30.190 personal tragedy, fierce intellectual rivalries, 00:00:30.230 --> 00:00:32.990 and just massive, massive global success. Right. 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:35.140 Just to give you a sense of the scale here, Isabel 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:37.740 Allende is widely considered the most widely 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.000 read Spanish language author in the world. Which 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.859 is wild. It is. Over 77 million copies sold, 00:00:43.859 --> 00:00:46.320 translated into, I think, more than 42 languages. 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:48.500 But, you know, her journey didn't start in high 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:50.759 literature. No, it definitely did not. It actually 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:52.659 started with her getting fired from a journalism 00:00:52.659 --> 00:00:56.159 gig for secretly fixing romance novels. Which 00:00:56.159 --> 00:00:58.880 is just the best origin story. But really quickly, 00:00:58.979 --> 00:01:01.060 before we jump into that, there's an important 00:01:01.060 --> 00:01:02.880 point we need to make for you listening. Yeah, 00:01:02.979 --> 00:01:06.040 the context is important here. Exactly. Because 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:08.739 her life is so tied to modern politics, you are 00:01:08.739 --> 00:01:11.640 going to hear about some very sharp contemporary 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.180 critiques she's made about major political figures, 00:01:14.579 --> 00:01:17.200 both right -wing and left -wing, from Donald 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:20.180 Trump to Henry Kissinger. So we need to state 00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:23.180 clearly and impartially, we are not endorsing 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:25.819 the viewpoints of the content, but simply trying 00:01:25.819 --> 00:01:28.420 to convey the ideas and statements contained 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:31.340 in the original source material. We take no sides 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:33.400 here. We just report the history as it's written. 00:01:33.659 --> 00:01:36.040 Right, perfectly said. To understand her literature, 00:01:36.340 --> 00:01:38.379 you really just have to objectively look at the 00:01:38.379 --> 00:01:40.540 worldview that forged it. Right, definitely. 00:01:40.819 --> 00:01:43.000 And to do that, we have to go way back to her 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:45.019 early life. Yeah, back to Peru, actually. She 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:47.879 was born in Lima in 1942. Right, to a Chilean 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:50.980 diplomat father. Exactly. And notably, her dad 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:53.299 was the first cousin of Salvador Allende, who 00:01:53.299 --> 00:01:55.500 later becomes the democratically elected president 00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:58.980 of Chile. But her father actually abandoned the 00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:00.900 family when she was very young. Right, which 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:03.299 forced her mother to relocate Isabel and her 00:02:03.299 --> 00:02:06.420 two brothers back to Santiago, Chile. And imagine 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:08.479 growing up in that specific environment in the 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:11.759 1950s. Oh, it was a deeply conservative society. 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:14.729 Right. She's watching her mom. navigate this 00:02:14.729 --> 00:02:17.169 society without a husband while the whole system 00:02:17.169 --> 00:02:19.449 is basically just catering entirely to men. Yeah, 00:02:19.449 --> 00:02:22.210 and it sparked this immediate defiance in her. 00:02:22.270 --> 00:02:24.909 She actually called herself a feminist in kindergarten. 00:02:25.069 --> 00:02:27.449 I love that. Right, and she had the track record 00:02:27.449 --> 00:02:30.210 to back it up. She was famously expelled from 00:02:30.210 --> 00:02:33.250 school for insubordination. Wait, really? Just 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:35.750 for being defiant? Basically, yeah. She just 00:02:35.750 --> 00:02:38.210 refused to accept that her brothers got all these 00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:40.849 privileges over her. She demanded to know why 00:02:40.849 --> 00:02:43.090 the rules were different just based on gender. 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:45.800 Which perfectly sets up that romance novel incident 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:48.599 we teased earlier. Oh, exactly. So let's unpack 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:50.819 this, because it's so good. She's working in 00:02:50.819 --> 00:02:54.060 journalism, taking on these side jobs, translating 00:02:54.060 --> 00:02:56.900 English paperback romances into Spanish, right? 00:02:57.020 --> 00:02:59.580 Right, the super formulaic ones. Yeah, where 00:02:59.580 --> 00:03:02.280 the woman is entirely dependent, just waiting 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:05.659 for the prince to rescue her. And Alende just 00:03:05.659 --> 00:03:07.879 couldn't stomach it. Not at all. So she acts 00:03:07.879 --> 00:03:12.000 like this sort of literary Robin Hood. She takes 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.409 her pen. steals the agency back from the patriarchy, 00:03:15.830 --> 00:03:18.090 and gives it to the fictional heroines. She's 00:03:18.090 --> 00:03:21.150 rewriting dialogue to make them smarter, changing 00:03:21.150 --> 00:03:23.490 Cinderella endings so the women find independence. 00:03:23.629 --> 00:03:26.289 Which is brilliant. But I have to ask, was this 00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:30.050 early, playful rebellion actually the first spark 00:03:30.050 --> 00:03:33.759 of her specific literary voice? Oh, without a 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:35.379 doubt. I mean, she wasn't just changing these 00:03:35.379 --> 00:03:38.139 endings for a laugh. She was actively testing 00:03:38.139 --> 00:03:40.740 out the themes that would define her entire career. 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:42.879 Like the oppression liberation stuff. Exactly. 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:45.800 The dynamics of women contesting male -dominated 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:48.879 societies. These are the exact core concepts 00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:51.580 that drive her post -boom in magical realism 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:53.560 literature later on. It's like a training ground. 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:56.060 Yeah. She was chafing against those patriarchal 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:58.180 expectations, and she used whatever tool she 00:03:58.180 --> 00:04:00.800 had, even someone else's cheap paperback, to 00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:02.840 write a different reality. And it wasn't just 00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:05.639 her who noticed this talent. She actually interviewed 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:07.979 the legendary poet Pabst Neruda, right? Yes, 00:04:08.099 --> 00:04:11.039 she did. And Neruda basically sat her down and 00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:13.020 told her she had way too much imagination to 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:16.329 be a journalist. Huh. just flat out told her 00:04:16.329 --> 00:04:18.769 to quit reporting. He did. He said she needed 00:04:18.769 --> 00:04:21.529 to write novels and that she should compile all 00:04:21.529 --> 00:04:24.250 her satirical columns into a book instead. So 00:04:24.250 --> 00:04:27.430 she had this incredible validation. But unfortunately, 00:04:27.730 --> 00:04:30.569 that playful witty subversion was abruptly forced 00:04:30.569 --> 00:04:33.610 onto a much, much darker global stage. Yeah, 00:04:33.689 --> 00:04:35.370 the history really catches up with her here. 00:04:35.470 --> 00:04:39.430 We're talking about 1973. The 1973 Chilean coup 00:04:39.430 --> 00:04:43.110 d 'etat. General Augusto Pinochet overthrows 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:45.910 President Salvador Allende. And again, that was 00:04:45.910 --> 00:04:48.009 Isabel's father's cousin. Right. The military 00:04:48.009 --> 00:04:50.930 takeover was violent, it was immediate, and it 00:04:50.930 --> 00:04:52.970 changed everything overnight. She goes from being 00:04:52.970 --> 00:04:55.910 a housewife and a journalist to literally arranging 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.910 safe passage for people on the new military regime's 00:04:58.910 --> 00:05:01.069 wanted lists. Yeah. She was hiding people, smuggling 00:05:01.069 --> 00:05:03.759 them out. saving lives. Until she herself became 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:05.639 a target, right? Exactly. She started getting 00:05:05.639 --> 00:05:08.379 death threats. She had absolutely no choice but 00:05:08.379 --> 00:05:11.759 to flee. So she goes into this 13 -year exile 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:14.420 in Venezuela. 13 years. That is a massive chunk 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:18.019 of life. It is. And it's hard to overstate how 00:05:18.019 --> 00:05:21.120 devastating exile is. You lose your home, your 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:23.920 language idioms, your community. But this is 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:26.259 also the exact catalyst that transformed her 00:05:26.259 --> 00:05:28.819 into a serious globally recognized author, isn't 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:31.959 it? It really is. What's fascinating here is 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:35.860 how exile provided the necessary distance. Alenda 00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:38.319 herself said that if she had stayed in Chile, 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:40.860 she probably never would have become a serious 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:43.199 writer. Really? Why not? She said she would have 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:45.639 been trapped in the chores and the expectations 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:48.399 of women in her patriarchal family. Right. Exile 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:50.519 stripped all that away. So she's in Venezuela 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:52.800 feeling completely uprooted. And then we get 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:55.800 to 1977. Right, the famous phone call. She gets 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.360 word that her 99 -year -old grandfather is dying 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:00.920 back in Chile. But because of her exile, she 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:02.819 can't go to him. She can't cross the border. 00:06:02.980 --> 00:06:04.740 So she sits down to write him a letter. She says 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:07.360 she wanted to keep him alive, at least in spirit. 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:09.860 Yeah. But the letter just kept going, didn't 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:12.240 it? It turned into this massive manuscript that 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:14.819 eventually became her breakthrough 1982 novel, 00:06:14.980 --> 00:06:17.829 The House of the Spirits. Which is just a foundational 00:06:17.829 --> 00:06:21.509 text of magical realism. And it was her way of 00:06:21.509 --> 00:06:24.149 exercising the ghosts of the dictatorship. And 00:06:24.149 --> 00:06:26.129 this brings up something that I find totally 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:29.589 mind -blowing about her. We have this romanticized 00:06:29.589 --> 00:06:33.009 idea of the chaotic creative, right? The artist 00:06:33.009 --> 00:06:35.430 waiting for the muse to strike. Oh, the stereotype, 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:39.350 yeah. But Elende treats her sprawling magical 00:06:39.350 --> 00:06:43.050 art like a rigid nine -to -five factory job. 00:06:43.170 --> 00:06:45.810 Oh, she is incredibly disciplined. She works 00:06:45.810 --> 00:06:48.290 Monday to Saturday, 9 in the morning until 7 00:06:48.290 --> 00:06:50.569 at night, always on a computer. And she always 00:06:50.569 --> 00:06:52.670 starts a new book on January 8th, right? Yes, 00:06:52.829 --> 00:06:55.250 every single time. To honor the date she started 00:06:55.250 --> 00:06:57.290 that letter to her grandfather. I just don't 00:06:57.290 --> 00:06:59.610 get it. how such wild imagination survives that 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:02.089 extreme discipline. You'd think that kind of 00:07:02.089 --> 00:07:03.910 militaristic schedule would kill the magical 00:07:03.910 --> 00:07:06.269 realism. It sounds counterintuitive, but think 00:07:06.269 --> 00:07:08.129 about her life up to that point. The violent 00:07:08.129 --> 00:07:10.370 loss of her country, the assassination threats, 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:13.329 the chaos. Ah, right. It was all out of her control. 00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:16.279 Exactly. The rigid routine might actually be 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:18.500 a way to control a world that had otherwise been 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:21.579 completely upended by political violence. The 00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:23.639 structure protects the creativity from the chaos 00:07:23.639 --> 00:07:26.360 outside. That makes a lot of sense. But tragically, 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:28.500 while fiction allowed her to control the narrative, 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.420 her real world narrative was about to be shattered 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:35.420 by something unimaginable. Yeah. In 1991, her 00:07:35.420 --> 00:07:38.680 28 year old daughter, Paula, fell critically 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:41.459 ill. She is suffering from porphyria. Yes. And 00:07:41.459 --> 00:07:43.439 while she was in the hospital receiving treatment, 00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:45.839 there was a severe medication error. Oh, man. 00:07:45.980 --> 00:07:48.420 It was catastrophic. It caused severe brain damage. 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.240 And Paula ended up in a persistent vegetative 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:53.860 state. She passed away the following year in 00:07:53.860 --> 00:07:58.560 1992 at just 29 years old. That is just, it's 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.279 unimaginable grief. It really is. And she channeled 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:04.680 all of that anguish into her 1995 memoir, simply 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:07.240 titled Paula. Which was written as a letter to 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.800 her daughter. Exactly. An anguished letter explaining 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:11.600 their family history and trying to reach her 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:13.379 while she was in the coma. You know, it makes 00:08:13.379 --> 00:08:15.720 me wonder about the nature of grief and writing. 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:19.100 Is writing a memoir like Paula fundamentally 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:21.420 different from writing a novel? How do you mean? 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:24.439 Well, think about the parallel. If the House 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:27.139 of the Spirits was a letter written to keep her 00:08:27.139 --> 00:08:29.860 grandfather alive in spirit, Paula feels like 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:31.819 a letter written to survive someone's death. 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:35.009 Wow. Yes. That is a really profound way to look 00:08:35.009 --> 00:08:38.009 at it. And that era fundamentally changed her. 00:08:38.090 --> 00:08:40.190 It shifted her focus to the real world, didn't 00:08:40.190 --> 00:08:43.519 it? Completely. It cemented her belief that knowledge 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:45.919 and resources are most valuable when applied 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:49.960 tangibly. So in 1996, she launched the Isabel 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:52.980 Allen Foundation. Which was to honor Paula's 00:08:52.980 --> 00:08:55.360 dedication to helping poor communities. Right. 00:08:55.419 --> 00:08:57.779 Paula was deeply involved in volunteer work. 00:08:57.799 --> 00:09:01.000 So the foundation focuses on empowering and protecting 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:02.919 the fundamental rights of women and children. 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:06.139 It was a massive pivot from literary fame to 00:09:06.139 --> 00:09:08.899 humanitarian work. Which, by the way, later earned 00:09:08.899 --> 00:09:10.929 her the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack 00:09:10.929 --> 00:09:14.210 Obama in 2014. A huge honor. But here's where 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:17.950 it gets really interesting. Despite the massive 00:09:17.950 --> 00:09:21.730 sales, the global impact, the humanitarian awards, 00:09:23.149 --> 00:09:26.149 the literary establishment has not always embraced 00:09:26.149 --> 00:09:29.169 her warmly. Oh, that is putting it mildly. The 00:09:29.169 --> 00:09:32.110 critiques from her peers are brutal. Especially 00:09:32.110 --> 00:09:34.970 the male -dominated Latin American intellectual 00:09:34.970 --> 00:09:37.789 circle. Right. For example, Roberto Belaño called 00:09:37.789 --> 00:09:40.600 her work anemic. He explicitly said she was a 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:42.899 writing machine, not a writer, and predicted 00:09:42.899 --> 00:09:45.679 her work wouldn't live long. Ouch. And it wasn't 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:48.279 just him. Harold Bloom said she simply reflects 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:50.779 a period and will be forgotten. Yeah, and Gonzalo 00:09:50.779 --> 00:09:52.759 Contreras accused her of confusing commercial 00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:55.559 success with literary quality. Which feels so 00:09:55.559 --> 00:09:58.320 elitist. I mean, is the literary elite treating 00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:00.539 her the way cinephiles treat a Marvel movie? 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:02.720 Are they gatekeeping simply because her work 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:06.309 is accessible and beloved? That is a great analogy. 00:10:06.730 --> 00:10:08.570 They see millions of copies sold and assume it 00:10:08.570 --> 00:10:13.529 can't be high art. Oh, fiercely. She admits Chilean 00:10:13.529 --> 00:10:15.789 intellectuals detest her, but she insists that 00:10:15.789 --> 00:10:17.850 claiming massive book sales equates to being 00:10:17.850 --> 00:10:20.389 a bad writer is a great insult to the readership. 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:23.230 Good for her. She respects her audience too much 00:10:23.230 --> 00:10:26.129 to pretend popularity is a flaw. And honestly, 00:10:26.350 --> 00:10:28.929 her literature, her massive sales, and her fierce 00:10:28.929 --> 00:10:31.769 political views are all totally intertwined. 00:10:32.230 --> 00:10:33.889 Speaking of those political views, let's look 00:10:33.889 --> 00:10:36.169 at what the sources say about her contemporary 00:10:36.169 --> 00:10:39.250 stances. And just as a quick reminder for you 00:10:39.250 --> 00:10:41.690 listening, we are objectively reporting the source 00:10:41.690 --> 00:10:44.070 text here. We're not endorsing any views. Right, 00:10:44.110 --> 00:10:46.769 just laying out the facts of her life. So she 00:10:46.769 --> 00:10:49.470 has been very vocal. She expressed contempt for 00:10:49.470 --> 00:10:51.889 Donald Trump in 2016 and again looking toward 00:10:51.889 --> 00:10:55.570 2025. Yes. The sources note she cited misogyny. 00:10:55.710 --> 00:10:58.450 homophobia and criticized the Supreme Court for 00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:01.429 stripping away women's and LGBTQ rights. She 00:11:01.429 --> 00:11:03.909 even drew comparisons to the Taliban in Afghanistan 00:11:03.909 --> 00:11:06.429 regarding how fast women can lose their rights. 00:11:06.450 --> 00:11:08.870 She did. And she didn't hold back on Henry Kissinger 00:11:08.870 --> 00:11:11.129 either. No, she did not. Following his death 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:14.750 in 2023, she labeled him a war criminal specifically 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:17.490 for masterminding U .S. interventions and replacing 00:11:17.490 --> 00:11:19.690 democracies with dictatorships, which, of course, 00:11:19.830 --> 00:11:22.389 ties directly back to the 1973 coup in Chile 00:11:22.389 --> 00:11:24.759 that forced her into exile. Exactly. It's all 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:27.639 connected. The source material also notes she 00:11:27.639 --> 00:11:29.940 staunchly supports abortion rights, Black Lives 00:11:29.940 --> 00:11:32.080 Matter, and the MeToo movement. And you can see 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.639 how it all fits together. She refuses to write 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:37.600 for a small elite circle because her entire worldview, 00:11:38.440 --> 00:11:41.460 forged by the coup, her exile, her feminist awakening, 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:44.399 it demands that she speak to the masses. She 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:47.240 writes for everyday people. Exactly. Her politics 00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:50.019 and her art are the same project, pushing back 00:11:50.019 --> 00:11:52.460 against structures that try to silence the vulnerable. 00:11:52.730 --> 00:11:55.690 It's incredible. And for you, the learner, listening 00:11:55.690 --> 00:11:58.370 to this, I think Elin's life really proves that 00:11:58.370 --> 00:12:01.309 being well -informed isn't just about memorizing 00:12:01.309 --> 00:12:04.029 historical dates. Not at all. It's about understanding 00:12:04.029 --> 00:12:07.990 how deep personal traumas and these quiet early 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:10.529 rebellions shape the art and the politics of 00:12:10.529 --> 00:12:13.049 our times. Yeah, and it leaves you with one last 00:12:13.049 --> 00:12:15.799 thing to mull over, really. What's that? Well, 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:18.659 if Isabelle Allende's legendary career essentially 00:12:18.659 --> 00:12:21.139 began because she decided to secretly rewrite 00:12:21.139 --> 00:12:23.879 the endings of romance novels, you have to wonder 00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:26.120 how much of our own historical memory is just 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:28.419 a story we've consciously chosen to rewrite just 00:12:28.419 --> 00:12:29.519 so that we can survive it.