Poured Over: Isabel Allende on Violeta
“I want my readers to be entertained. And if possible, to take a look at that period of that century that was so fascinating, a time of violence, and change, and great steps forward for humanity…” Isabel Allende’s epic new novel, Violeta, is out now, and she joins us on the show to talk about memory and history and justice, love and freedom and family, her creative process (and what the date January 8th means to her) and much more. Featured books: Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The Soul of a Woman and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and engineered by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and wherever you listen to podcasts.
From this episode:
B&N: The scope of this novel is really epic, and really does cover the 20th century.
Isabel Allende: Many of my novels have been described as epic. First of all, I’ve never written a story of characters that are not impacted dramatically by social and political events, because they are in a place at a time when things happen. And in my own life, I did not have control over the events that really changed my destiny. So because I have lived that experience over and over in my life, and I have started from scratch, and I have been always displaced. It’s very hard for me to create a story in which two characters are in an apartment, fighting over a bad marriage…but outside, there are protests and revolutions and war and earthquakes, things are happening, that you don’t live in a bubble. So in the case of Violeta, she’s out there in the world, and the world affects every step of her life.
B&N: You have a great line to from an old interview: memory and imagination are essentially the same thing.
Isabel Allende: They are essentially the same process in the mind. And if you think about it, most of what you remember, you cannot even prove it. And if someone who was with you, in that moment in that very same place might remember it differently, or might not remember it at all. So of course it’s very close to what do we care for. We remember more what impacts us emotionally.
B&N: And that’s what all of your novels have been about. You’ve always used the context of family to talk about freedom and to talk about redemption, injustice. It’s always been centered in the emotion for you. I mean, yes, you’ve done a lot of research for this book. Yes, there are these major points, as we’ve mentioned previously, but it is ultimately always about how the writing makes you feel.
Isabel Allende: I ended up writing about what I really care for at that moment. So there are certain themes that are in all my books. So I assume that I have cared about that or my life. And as you mentioned, justice is one thing that is important for me. Violence, death, love, loyalty, that’s really important. The solidarity, especially between women, the underdog, the people who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment, the people who are marginalized, those I’m interested in, and the bonds between them.