Isabel Allende

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

MY CASTAWY THIS Week is a writer. She was, she says, a feminist from the age of five. She also believes she can predict things. The events that happen in your dreams can, she claims, be more important than those which take place in your waking life.

Presenter0:43

She came to writing comparatively late. Her first book, The House of the Spirits, was written when she was thirty nine. It's since been translated into twenty seven languages and sold in its millions. Today, voluntarily exiled from her native Chile, she lives and writes in California, but her books still evoke the turbulent country she's left behind. She is Isabel

Presenter1:06

Isabella, in fact, you you didn't so much dream that you would meet your present husband as write in a book how it would happen, didn't you?

Isabel Allende1:14

When I wrote Evaluna I brought up this character Rolf Carlane to her life, and the circumstances and the character resembles a little bit my own husband.

Isabel Allende1:24

But that's a coincidence. I don't think I predicted that. It just happened. But you have predicted things, or at least

Presenter1:30

written things in your books that have subsequently proved to be true as if somehow you knew them, but they were things that you had no knowledge of?

Isabel Allende1:35

Somehow

Isabel Allende1:39

No, but I think that happens to most writers. When you spend a lot of time alone, in a room, focussed on a project, concentrated, in silence.

Isabel Allende1:49

things happen. I think you tap into a collective

Isabel Allende1:52

unconscious, a collective dream, a collective hope, and you get things that you would never get in normal times.

Presenter2:00

Well you do. Do you think that's true of all writers?

Isabel Allende2:02

To many writers. I have talked to other writers and many people do.

Isabel Allende2:06

I'm more aware of it because I come from a family that was very influenced by my grandmother. My grandmother was clairvoyant. She spent her life experimenting with telepathy, which, by the way, works much better than the Chilean telephone company.

Isabel Allende2:21

And

Isabel Allende2:23

She tried to move objects without touching them. She lived with premonitions and and prophetic dreams. So you feel you've inherited a lot of that, do you?

Isabel Allende2:34

I have inherited the openness.

Isabel Allende2:36

I'm not close to the idea that that can happen.

Isabel Allende2:40

But you dreamt the sex of your children, I believe.

Presenter2:42

Uh

Isabel Allende2:42

I did dream about my children, and now about my grandchildren.

Presenter2:45

But you dreamt what sex they were when they were still in the womb.

Isabel Allende2:46

Well when they were still in the womb and what name they would have and how they would look.

Isabel Allende2:51

However, there are other things in my life that have been extremely important and I could not predict them the military coup in Chile, for example, or the death of my daughter.

Presenter3:00

But when you talk, and I want to talk to you about both of those things later on, but when you talk about

Presenter3:05

almost going into a trance when you're writing. Are you saying this is something beyond the normal absorption that one has when one sits at a desk and works? And you know, you might look up after two hours and think, Good heavens, two hours have gone by? You're saying it's something more than that. You go somewhere or you're taken over in some way?

Isabel Allende3:20

In some ways.

Isabel Allende3:25

I just sit down, turn on my computer, and let things happen at a very organic level.

Isabel Allende3:32

The story seems to unfold itself, the characters take over.

Isabel Allende3:36

And I am an instrument, a sort of medium.

Presenter3:39

Have you had any premonitions about what it might be like to be alone on a desert island?

Presenter3:43

I think I would write lots of books.

Isabel Allende3:46

Yeah.

Presenter3:46

Yeah.

Isabel Allende3:46

I would have a great time.

Presenter3:48

We'd be in a permanent trance.

Isabel Allende3:49

Uh

Presenter3:51

So what's the first record that you'd play when you get there?

Isabel Allende3:54

Well, I I chose as my first record El Condor Pasa because it's a very Andean music. It it reminds me of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, the places where I lived when I was a child.

Speaker 44:08

Uh

Speaker 44:10

I was saying a ride.

Speaker 44:14

Like a sword that's here and gone A man gets taught up to the bone He gives the world its satisfaction

Presenter4:35

Simon and Garfunkel and El Condo Passa, and a reminder of Isabel Allende's roots in Latin America. You in fact left your native Chile in 1975, some eighteen months or so after President Allende was overthrown and and died in the military coup. He was a cousin, was he? No, he was my father's cousin. He was an uncle. He was an uncle. And has the family ever discovered precisely how he died? No.

Isabel Allende5:02

So um

Presenter5:03

Yeah.

Isabel Allende5:03

We suppose he was killed.

Isabel Allende5:05

But even if he was not, even if he committed suicide, as the military say that that's the official version of what happened,

Isabel Allende5:12

I think that Allende had decided

Isabel Allende5:14

when he entered the palace that morning, that he would die there, he would never surrender. And he was a very courageous man, so whatever happened in that room at that point,

Isabel Allende5:25

It's not significant. What really matters is that he died for something that he believed in very strongly.

Presenter5:31

But you're saying he he would have committed suicide. He would never have

Isabel Allende5:34

He would have never surrendered.

Presenter5:36

Apparently, though, there there had been a lot of talk about a possible coup before it happened, but you've always said and written that you were really rather surprised by it, nevertheless. Why was that?

Isabel Allende5:47

If I was a journalist, I suppose I should have known better.

Isabel Allende5:50

But I was

Isabel Allende5:51

not involved in politics, and I really believed that Chile had this long

Isabel Allende5:56

democratic tradition, that our armed forces were different, that we were not like those banana republics that we so much despised in Chile at the time.

Isabel Allende6:07

You believed it could

Presenter6:08

You believed it could never happen.

Isabel Allende6:08

I thought it would never happen, and I also thought that if it did happen.

Isabel Allende6:13

It would never have those that that brutality and that violence, or would last that long.

Presenter6:19

But you drove around the streets the morning after the coup and you saw it with your own eyes, didn't you?

Isabel Allende6:22

Yes, I saw a lot of awful things.

Isabel Allende6:26

I saw a lot of killing and I saw people who were tortured.

Isabel Allende6:30

And part of my um my horror

Isabel Allende6:33

was that as soon as the curfew was lifted, half of my friends had disappeared. They were hiding, or they were in exile, or they were they had found asylum in an embassy, or they had died, or they were taken in prison.

Isabel Allende6:45

So, um

Isabel Allende6:47

Immediately after the coup I had to take a position, I had to help some friends.

Isabel Allende6:53

And I got very much involved. But what did you do? How did you help people? Did you hide dissidents? Yes, sometimes at home. Sometimes I had to um move them from one place to another. There was a network of places where people hidden.

Presenter7:06

But that must have been quite frightening, because any moment they could pounce on you and you would simply disappear.

Isabel Allende7:11

Yes, uh but I didn't know that at the beginning. When I started

Isabel Allende7:15

No one knew anything.

Isabel Allende7:17

And later, as repression became more efficient,

Isabel Allende7:22

Then I realized the risk I was taking, but it was too late. I couldn't step back.

Presenter7:27

The most shocking thing about that situation must presumably be suddenly to discover that just beneath the surface in your own country this evil exists and that it can rise up within twenty four hours and suddenly you've got expert torturers around the place.

Isabel Allende7:36

Rise up

Isabel Allende7:41

Yes, two hours after.

Presenter7:41

Uh

Isabel Allende7:43

Allende died, there were concentration camps all over the country, expert tortures all over the country, and half the population was supporting the coup. So I realized that there had been this fascist brutality within my country always and I hadn't seen it. So now I'm very much aware that that is a possibility everywhere in the world. It can happen here in London, it can happen in the United States, and people are not aware of that.

Presenter8:10

And in the end you fled, you fled to Venezuela.

Isabel Allende8:12

Let's Yeah.

Presenter8:13

Pause there and have your second record.

Isabel Allende8:16

I was brought up listening to classical music.

Isabel Allende8:19

And this is a piece that I love and it has always been with me.

Presenter9:26

Part of the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. five in C minor, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Otto Klempere. Let let's go back, Isabel Allende, to those roots where Beethoven's Fifth was a favourite. That was in your maternal grandparents' home, I think, where you spent the first part of your childhood.

Isabel Allende9:43

Yeah, I was brought up in my grandfather's house. My parents separated when I was so young that I have no memories of my father. Your father left. Did he? Yes. How old were you then?

Isabel Allende9:54

I don't remember, I must have been around three or less.

Presenter9:57

And you've never discovered why, or

Isabel Allende9:59

I I think he just didn't get along with my mother. I don't know really what happened.

Presenter9:59

I love it.

Isabel Allende10:03

We were living in in Peru at the time. My mother returned to Chile with uh my brothers and me.

Isabel Allende10:09

and uh we lived with my grandfather. He was the male figure in my life at that time.

Isabel Allende10:15

It was a weird house the model for the House of the Spirits, my first novel, and my grandfather was the model for Esteban Treva, although he was not

Isabel Allende10:24

The violent and awful character of the book. He was a much better person, I'm sure.

Presenter10:28

But he was a patriarch.

Isabel Allende10:29

Oh yes, very authoritarian.

Presenter10:29

Oh yes.

Isabel Allende10:32

aloof and uh severe, very rigid. He was always dressed in black. He painted the furniture black because he after my grandmother died

Isabel Allende10:41

We mourned her for many years. Yeah.

Presenter10:44

And your grandmother, you say, was clairvoyant. She moved the furniture around regularly on a Sunday afternoon. On Thursdays afternoon.

Presenter10:52

But did she have p

Isabel Allende10:53

People round and have seances.

Presenter10:54

Uh

Isabel Allende10:54

Yes, of course. And my grandfather, who was a pragmatic Basque, hated that kind of thing.

Isabel Allende11:00

He believed in progress. Then one day my grandmother decided that maybe it was not the souls of the dead that moved the furniture around.

Isabel Allende11:09

But extraterrestrials. Now that was scientific, and my grandfather said, Well, that can be. And so he participated in the science.

Presenter11:17

What about the effect on you? I mean, it must have been quite unnerving for a young child, surely. I mean, were you not? Not at all.

Isabel Allende11:22

Not at all. There was nothing spooky about it. And I sh I I I grew up with the idea that there is another dimension of reality, a dimension of of emotions and dreams and premonitions and uh and the past that that was always like haunting you in a in a benevolent way. On the other hand, I also grew up among books and I had an uncle who thought that at night he told me that at night when the lights were off.

Isabel Allende11:48

The characters would come out of the pages and roam the house, so I would go to bed with the idea that princesses and courtesans and bandits and pirates were roaming the house.

Presenter12:00

And there was also um a particular book, wasn't there, that was locked away in a cupboard from Young Prying Hands, which are used to go.

Isabel Allende12:06

That was later on, when I was an adolescent in Lebanon.

Isabel Allende12:10

And my stepfather had a closet, locked closet, where he kept uh his chocolates, cigarettes, Playboy, magazines, and these four mysterious volumes that of course I learned I learned to open the the closet, get in there with a flashlight, and read these books, because if they were locked in the closet they were forbidden. You know, I think literature should be forbidden. That's the only way that people would ever read. So what was it you used to read from the closet? One Thousand and One Nights, looking for the dirty parts.

Isabel Allende12:39

That was the the time when all my hormones were exploding, and uh I read it in the best circumstances.

Presenter12:46

And it was quite easy of for you to do that, by all accounts,'cause you were an inveterate liar, you were always telling fibs and making up stories and generally deceiving people.

Isabel Allende12:55

Yes, and now that I make a living with that, I'm called a narrator.

Presenter12:59

I'm respected. Now you're a storyteller.

Isabel Allende13:02

And a very

Presenter13:02

Successful.

Isabel Allende13:03

Let's have your third record. What is it? My third record has to do with sensuality, and I think in a way it reminds me of that time in Lebanon. It's La Abanera, Carmen, by Bise.

Speaker 413:34

Le parlour bien autu citre je pere

Isabel Allende13:38

Peace.

Speaker 413:42

The Lord Yes it might

Presenter14:15

Maria Callas singing the Abenera from Bizet's Carmen with L'Oquestre du Teatre Nationale conducted by Georges Prêtre.

Presenter14:24

Why have you said, Isabel, that in the middle uh of all this family life you were a feminist from the age of five?

Isabel Allende14:31

Because I grew up in a household where the males had all the privileges and all the power, and my mother was a victim.

Isabel Allende14:38

My mother and I were the only females in the family.

Isabel Allende14:42

And I didn't want to be like my mother. I wanted to be like my grandfather, and protect my mother from this very harsh society that condemned her.

Presenter14:51

Yeah.

Isabel Allende14:51

Uh

Presenter14:51

Uh

Isabel Allende14:51

New marriage

Presenter14:51

young, and refused to take your husband's name.

Isabel Allende14:54

Yes, but I married a man who was very kind in that sense. He was not the typical Latin American macho. Maybe I would have never married uh the typical husband.

Presenter15:03

But didn't did he just comply, or did he understand the sort of equality you were after?

Isabel Allende15:07

I think he didn't care very much. It wasn't important for him.

Presenter15:10

But he loved you, so anything was okay.

Isabel Allende15:13

Of course he did.

Presenter15:13

I al I've always wondered why.

Presenter15:16

But the marriage lasted a quarter of a century. Yes, a very long time.

Isabel Allende15:18

Yeah.

Presenter15:20

But all of this was very avant-garde for what, Chilean nineteen sixty, just at the turn, just as you we went into the sixties. I mean, he he must have been stunned. Your whole attitude was very radical. I mean, you campaigned for divorce and abortion.

Isabel Allende15:34

Didn't you? No, those words you couldn't even pronounce in public.

Isabel Allende15:37

Even today you can't say the word condom in Chile in public. It's awful.

Presenter15:41

But I thought in your journalism in the magazine

Isabel Allende15:43

That was later the magazine.

Presenter15:44

Mm-hmm.

Isabel Allende15:44

Uh

Presenter15:44

True.

Isabel Allende15:45

Yeah, when when my daughter was born, I was around 26, my two kids were born.

Presenter15:45

Yeah, what what

Isabel Allende15:50

This new magazine appeared in Chile, a radical, feminine and feminist magazine. Not really very radical, but for for the time and the place it was, pretty avant garde.

Isabel Allende16:01

and I was invited to participate there, and I met these three other women who were stunning. These people had an articulate language to express the anger I felt, and I learned from them a lot. I could for the first time

Isabel Allende16:17

Say I'm a feminist because before I hadn't heard the word.

Presenter16:20

Uh

Presenter16:21

But how did you get into journalism in the first place? Because as as you've confessed, you're an inveterate liar.

Presenter16:27

And I mean, journalism is a strictly objective and fixed trade.

Isabel Allende16:30

You think so?

Isabel Allende16:34

Well, I started as a secretary and very soon I was moved from that office to another office in FAO in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. I was moved to the Information Department.

Isabel Allende16:49

And I worked with two very good journalists. Unfortunately one of them was sick, and the other one was very old, he was going to retire.

Isabel Allende16:56

So I ended up doing part of their work and I worked as a journalist until I left Chile in 1975.

Presenter17:03

And if you didn't like what people said, you kind of wrote what they ought to have said.

Isabel Allende17:07

Yes, of course.

Presenter17:08

Yeah. Of course.

Isabel Allende17:09

But you got I was an excellent interviewer. I could only always put uh the the the things I wanted to hear in the lips of my interview.

Presenter17:17

But you got your comeuppance on one occasion, didn't you? Not least with a Nobel Prize, were you?

Isabel Allende17:21

Yes. Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize, was back in Chile because he had been uh the ambassador in France for a long time, but he felt very ill and he returned to Chile. And I wrote at the time some humor columns that he liked.

Isabel Allende17:37

and one day he called at my office and he invited me to visit him.

Isabel Allende17:40

And I felt so proud, I thought, Oh, my God, I'm the best journalist in this country The Nobel Prize wants me to interview him.

Isabel Allende17:49

So I polished my car, bought a new tape recorder, and went to the hairdresser, of course, and went to his house.

Isabel Allende17:56

We had a wonderful day. He was already sick, but that day he was feeling a little better. It was raining. He showed me his wonderful collections of shells and bottles and paintings and books.

Isabel Allende18:08

We had lunch, sea bass, chili and sea bass.

Isabel Allende18:12

And a bottle of white wine?

Isabel Allende18:14

And then I said, Well, Don Pablo, I'm ready for the interview.

Isabel Allende18:18

Like you said, what interview?

Isabel Allende18:20

Well, the interview.

Isabel Allende18:22

I would never be interviewed by you, my child. You are the worst journalist in this country. You can never be objective. You lie all the time. Why don't you switch to literature, where all these defects are virtuous?

Isabel Allende18:35

And I thought, this guy must be too old. He's getting nuts. But you were well and truly crushed, aren't you? I was, absolutely. And I had to return humiliated without the interview. Record number four.

Isabel Allende18:49

I chose Greens Leaves, this is New Age music, and I chose it because my daughter liked it very much.

Isabel Allende18:57

and when she was sick I would play this over and over for her.

Presenter19:30

Green sleeves arranged by Liz Story, and music which reminds you, Isabella Inde, of your daughter Paola, who died in december nineteen ninety two, and she was twenty eight years old. You nursed her through the last year of her life, didn't you?

Isabel Allende19:43

Yes. Uh she was in coma for a year. At the beginning she was in a hospital, and when I realized that the doctors couldn't do anything for her, and they told me that uh she should be put in an institution somewhere, I organized a hospital at home, the first floor.

Isabel Allende20:01

and took care of her, and it was um

Isabel Allende20:04

The most painful time in my life, and also the most wonderful.

Isabel Allende20:09

When you have death watching over your shoulder.

Isabel Allende20:13

Life becomes so precious.

Isabel Allende20:15

And in those circumstances you are you have to

Isabel Allende20:19

Throw overboard everything that is not essential.

Isabel Allende20:23

And there's a point.

Isabel Allende20:25

when you are left.

Isabel Allende20:27

with the very, very essential, the basic.

Isabel Allende20:30

And that's love.

Isabel Allende20:32

and after she died

Isabel Allende20:34

Everything was gone.

Isabel Allende20:36

Except the love I gave.

Isabel Allende20:39

Not even the love I received, because the love I received.

Isabel Allende20:44

Maybe was there, but I couldn't feel it because my daughter couldn't um couldn't communicate in any way. Couldn't communicate with her at all.

Presenter20:48

Big

Isabel Allende20:50

Except in dreams I couldn't. She was uh totally paralysed.

Isabel Allende20:54

And Toralim.

Isabel Allende20:57

In in coma, she was like a mother.

Speaker 420:58

She was like her.

Isabel Allende21:00

She had a porphyria crisis. Porphyria is the lack of an enzyme. It's a very rare condition. She had a crisis. She it she was not well monitored in the hospital. She lost a lot of sodium.

Isabel Allende21:11

And that produced severe brain damage.

Isabel Allende21:15

And when you say you communicated with her through dreams, what do you mean?

Isabel Allende21:20

I could feel her in dreams, I could talk to her in dreams, she would appear to me healthy or sick, but I had a relationship with her when I was asleep.

Isabel Allende21:30

And and did you know when the time came that she was going to die?

Isabel Allende21:35

I knew a month before, because I s I couldn't dream.

Isabel Allende21:39

The dream stopped. She disappeared from your dream. She she started to drift away.

Isabel Allende21:44

And uh because I couldn't feel her spirit, I knew she was dying.

Isabel Allende21:49

Yeah.

Presenter21:49

But there was even more to it than that, wasn't there? Because hadn't you had a a premonition that your daughter would die one day?

Isabel Allende21:55

In nineteen eighty five, the volcano Nevado Ruiz in Colombia erupted and there was a mudslide that covered a village, and thousands of people died. And this little girl was trapped in the mud for four days.

Isabel Allende22:09

This girl was called Omaira Sanchez.

Isabel Allende22:13

I saw her on T V, and she haunted me for years, until I wrote a story in nineteen eight well, in nineteen eighty nine, I wrote a story about her. The story is called Of Clay We Are Made.

Isabel Allende22:26

And I never understood why this girl had been so important in my life, why I had I needed to write about her, why I have her photograph on my desk always.

Isabel Allende22:38

And then when when Paola was sick

Isabel Allende22:41

The image of Omaira Sanchez trapped in the mud came to me all the time, and and I would

Isabel Allende22:47

Relate both things my daughter was trapped in her body.

Isabel Allende22:51

And I realized that she had been haunting me because I needed to learn something, to learn something about the dignity of death, about courage.

Isabel Allende23:00

about how you can withstand everything if you have the inner strength to do it. In that story there is a man holding the girl.

Isabel Allende23:10

and I felt like that person holding my daughter.

Isabel Allende23:13

Uh

Presenter23:14

And you held her as she died.

Isabel Allende23:15

Yes, she died in my arms.

Isabel Allende23:18

And are you now visited by her spirit? No.

Isabel Allende23:22

No, um not as I was before. Before I it was a living presence with me and she would come very vividly in dreams. Now she's in the house.

Isabel Allende23:33

In the room where she died. It's the family room. It's the same place where my grandchildren are growing.

Isabel Allende23:39

and sometimes when everybody's in bed I go there

Isabel Allende23:42

and I turn off the light and close the door, and I can feel her.

Isabel Allende23:46

But that's because I really concentrate and I really wanted to be there.

Isabel Allende23:50

It's not the natural thing that was when she was

Isabel Allende23:54

Sick.

Isabel Allende23:56

And is that a comfort to you?

Isabel Allende24:01

You know what is a comfort.

Isabel Allende24:03

The knowledge that I'm going to die.

Isabel Allende24:06

the knowledge that um

Isabel Allende24:09

There's nothing horrible about death.

Isabel Allende24:11

that it's a threshold, like being born. The only horrible thing about it is that we don't carry our memories with us, and that's why it's so terrifying. So I know that my daughter was here for for some time, but the journey of her soul is very long.

Isabel Allende24:28

And also the journey of my soul is long, and part of what I have to learn now

Isabel Allende24:34

is the pain. I have to go through this pain, and I have to survive, and I have to carry this pain along with me for many years.

Isabel Allende24:41

In order to

Isabel Allende24:43

To grow.

Presenter24:45

Next piece of music.

Isabel Allende24:49

Peace Asam.

Isabel Allende24:51

Spring from Vivaldi's for seasons. And I like this because it's very vivid and at the same time very sentimental.

Isabel Allende24:59

And it has to do with that part of me that is

Isabel Allende25:03

Very sentimental.

Isabel Allende25:05

And this too

Presenter25:05

You played Fiotoff. Do I think

Isabel Allende25:07

I did play this for my daughter because she liked classic music very much. And I realized that every time I played this, she would like calm down when she was upset. It's hard to tell when when a person is in coma, if she's upset or not, but I I I could tell.

Presenter26:24

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Claudio Abardo playing part of Spring from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Presenter26:31

Does that whole experience, Isabel, leave you frightened now of your dreams, or frightened of the stories that

Presenter26:38

You read that stay in your mind. Are you are you more worried about writing than you were?

Presenter26:43

I don't know because I haven't written anything since then since then. Do you fear that you you might have writers' block? I mean you've obviously always just sat down and everything's poured out as you said and you go into a sort of trance and you write reams and reams. Are you frightened that's not going to happen anymore? Oh no.

Isabel Allende26:57

Oh no, not at all. I'm I'm loaded with stories and and I and I have the feeling that I will always be able to write.'Cause you read that first book, really. I mean it began as a letter to your grandfather, didn't it? The House of the Spirits? I meant to write to tell my grandfather that he could die in peace because I remembered everything and he would he would live forever in my memory and in the memory of my children and grandchildren.

Isabel Allende27:23

But then something happened and I and ended up writing The House of the Spirits.

Presenter27:28

You discovered you were writing a novel.

Isabel Allende27:29

Uh

Presenter27:29

I said So has that now confused you about your own history? I mean, you've you've obviously invented memory, you've borrowed from what was real and you've invented more. I mean, has the line between fact and fantasy gone for you? Are you unsure now what is truth?

Isabel Allende27:45

Totally unsure, especially with the House of the Spirits, because I wrote that book twelve years ago, and when I wrote the book my family wasn't very pleased. Some of my relatives wouldn't talk to me.

Isabel Allende27:56

And then, as the book became more popular and they started reading the reviews, then they started playing the roles. So the fiction of the book replaced the real story of the family the boundary was lost.

Isabel Allende28:07

And now we have the movie.

Isabel Allende28:09

So the the fiction of the movie is so much greater than that of the book that I'm sure that when the movie is released we will have the photographs of Meriel Streep and Jeremy Irons on the piano and they will be my grandparents. Let's have your next piece of music.

Isabel Allende28:25

My next uh piece of music is Memory. I like this song very much because

Isabel Allende28:31

I my life is about memory, it's about remembering and about inventing memories.

Isabel Allende28:37

That's what I write about.

Speaker 428:41

Don't let the move on.

Speaker 428:45

I can smile at the all day.

Speaker 428:50

I was beautiful there

Speaker 428:55

I remember the time I knew what handledness was.

Speaker 429:04

Let the memory Yeah.

Presenter29:07

Uh

Presenter29:09

Elaine Page, singing Memory from Cats. The first thing you write every day, apparently, is a letter to your mother at home in Chile.

Isabel Allende29:17

Every day? Every day.

Isabel Allende29:19

It puts me in the mood of writing. I go to my office early in the morning.

Isabel Allende29:24

And uh

Isabel Allende29:26

I start with a letter from my mother telling her about my life, not what what I did the previous day, but something that has to do with with your inner life. And I have a feeling that if I don't write it down, it would be

Isabel Allende29:40

blown away by the wind.

Presenter29:42

And she's your editor, too, isn't she? She's the only person

Isabel Allende29:44

She's the only person who reads my books and corrects them before they are published. How old is she? Seventy-two now. Very lucid, by the way. Oh, she's cruel. And she stops you being too morbid on occasions, I gather. Well, yeah, she always says that I kill people too soon. I remember when I wrote the Eva Luna, she said um she c she was reading it and she came back to me and she said, I I'm here in page sixty and we have fourteen corpses. How many more?

Isabel Allende30:10

I had to bring them back to life as I I was running out of characters.

Presenter30:13

Because she's she's always known to an extent, perhaps better than you, what you were writing about when you were writing about your own early life and taking the characters uh from Latin America. But your your latest book, um the novel The Infinite Plan, is set in California. How can she comment on that one?

Presenter30:29

Yeah.

Isabel Allende30:29

She doesn't know much about California or about the characters I was writing about, but she has an eye to get deeply into people, and people are very much the same everywhere.

Presenter30:38

Let's have record number seven.

Isabel Allende30:41

Record number seven is The Winner Takes It All.

Isabel Allende30:43

I like the lyrics of this because in a way it's very true, although all my life I have tried to prove.

Isabel Allende30:50

But it isn't that way. The winner doesn't take it all.

Isabel Allende30:54

But

Isabel Allende30:55

Maybe that's why I like this song.

Speaker 430:57

About things we've gone through.

Speaker 431:01

Though it's hurting me

Speaker 431:04

Now it's history.

Speaker 431:08

I played all my cards.

Speaker 431:13

And that's what you've done to.

Speaker 431:16

Nothing more to say.

Speaker 431:20

No more race to play.

Presenter31:24

The winner takes it all.

Presenter31:27

ABBA and the winner takes it all. So the desert island beckons, Isabel, space and peace and silence and only yourself to worry about. Is that an attractive proposition?

Isabel Allende31:38

To a certain extent, yes, but I would like to have a man with me.

Presenter31:42

We can't have that.

Isabel Allende31:43

It's not allowed too bad.

Presenter31:46

Would you be all right by yourself? What do you think you'd?

Isabel Allende31:48

Yes, I would be all right.

Isabel Allende31:50

I think that I would survive. I have survived so many things in my life that why would I perish? I don't think I would.

Isabel Allende31:58

Uh

Presenter31:58

You live now in in California?

Isabel Allende31:58

Uh

Presenter32:00

With a man, with your second husband, and that's where you write and where your life is presently. But I wonder.

Presenter32:08

Do you long to go home to Chile one day, for good?

Isabel Allende32:12

I go to Chile every year and every time I get there, I arrive in Chile, I'm fascinated and and I

Isabel Allende32:19

I feel that it's the great place. It's my country and I want to be there. But after a while

Isabel Allende32:25

I feel like suffocated.

Isabel Allende32:27

I realize that that it's very far away from everything, that it's very provincial.

Isabel Allende32:32

That I have become more a citizen of the world, that I needed a larger space.

Isabel Allende32:38

And then I leave, and I'm always missing it, so it's such an ambivalent feeling.

Presenter32:42

Because that's where your roots are and

Isabel Allende32:44

Maybe no maybe my roots are in my memory, in my books. I have lived abroad for so many years. I spent my youth travelling, and I have been away from Chile for twenty years.

Isabel Allende32:55

I it's just a sentimental route.

Presenter32:59

Last record.

Isabel Allende33:00

My last record is Carmina Burana because it's such a lively uh it's the joy of life, a celebration of life.

Isabel Allende33:09

And although I'm a fatalist, and many things have happened in my life,

Isabel Allende33:13

I do feel that life is wonderful and it's worthwhile living it.

Speaker 433:31

Uh

Speaker 433:41

Make fun book eight days.

Presenter34:16

The chorus Ecke Gratum from Karl Orff's Carmine Burana, with the orchestra and chorus of the Berlin Opera, conducted by Eugene Jochum.

Presenter34:24

Well, now, Isabel, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you choose?

Isabel Allende34:29

The last one.

Presenter34:30

Would you? Yes. The joy of life.

Isabel Allende34:31

The joy of

Presenter34:33

Now, the rules are that the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare are waiting for you. So you can't do it.

Isabel Allende34:38

No interest whatsoever.

Presenter34:40

Neither. Neither.

Isabel Allende34:41

Neither. I already read Shakespeare, and I have no interest in the Bible. I also have read it.

Isabel Allende34:45

Innumerable times. I don't want to read it again. No, no, by no means.

Presenter34:47

Yeah.

Presenter34:48

And uh

Presenter34:51

We won't put those on the beach for you, but you are allowed to choose one book of your own. What would you like to take?

Isabel Allende34:57

I wouldn't take a book. If you allow me, I would like to take with me the correspondence with my mother, all the letters that she has written to me, and all the letters I have written to her.

Presenter35:06

Have you still got them?

Isabel Allende35:07

She has mine and I have hers.

Isabel Allende35:10

And I would like to take that with me because that's my whole life.

Isabel Allende35:15

That's the memory and the recording of everything that has happened to me.

Isabel Allende35:20

And what about your luxury? Or is that it? No, my luxury would be a ton of white paper and a box of pencils.

Isabel Allende35:28

And you would write and write and write. Write and write and write.

Presenter35:29

Dried and rubber.

Presenter35:30

And never stop.

Isabel Allende35:31

Never stop.

Presenter35:33

Isabella Allende, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank

Isabel Allende35:37

Qu

Speaker 335:45

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 335:49

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio for