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Latin Forum
BOOKS
By VICTOR CRUZ-LUGO
The Love That Binds
On the eve of the release of
Isabel Allende’s latest memoir,
The Sum of Our Days, the internationally bestselling author
discusses how and why she continues to write.
This month writer Isabel Allende publishes the English version of her memoir La Suma de Los Días. It is the fourth autobiographical exploration and 15th book for this author who was born in Peru, came to womanhood in Chile and now lives in California. A meditation on the shifting fortunes of her brood of friends and intimates since the death of her daughter, Paula, The Sum of Our Days reveals that where there is a love that binds there is also an adventure for the soul.
Told as a reflective monologue addressed to her late daughter, this truth-telling foray takes on heightened urgency. Here, Allende moves toward the deeper wisdom, clarity and affirmation of one who has lived a full and varied life. Gone are the magical realist fabrications of works like her debut House of the Spirits. Unveiled are the bare essentials of Allende’s creative engine: a ferocious drive to document lives; a relentless, even ruthless, self-analysis; and the hard-won humor and practiced ear of an internationally relevant storyteller.
In this conversation with Hispanic, with a frankness she is now famous for, Allende reveals what motivates her, what doesn’t, and where her art is taking her.
Hispanic: Why did you choose to write a memoir now, as opposed to another work of fiction?
Isabel Allende: I had no idea that I was going to write a memoir. I start all my books on January 8, and in 2006 I had planned a historical novel. On that day my agent called from Spain early in the morning and suggested that I write a memoir instead. She reminded me that I had written another memoir, Paula, more than a decade before and many things had happened in my life and my family since then. I thought it was a good idea.
H: Why is January 8 so significant for you?
IA: I started my first novel The House of the Spirits on January 8, 1981. It was a lucky book so I decided to start the second one Of Love and Shadows on the same day. It was also very lucky. Since then I have started all my books on that day. It is superstition but also discipline. My life is very complicated and if I didn’t have a date to start writing I would be procrastinating forever.
H: Has writing gotten easier or harder for you?
IA: I wrote my first novel very easily because then I was totally innocent: I didn’t know anything about writing, the literary critics and professors, the publishing world, or the press. I didn’t even know if my manuscript was ever going to be published! Since then things got harder. My super-ego is always standing next to my computer with a whip, demanding more and more of me. I have become very critical of my own work. I have been writing for more than 20 years and I suppose I have learned a few tricks of the trade, but as I get older there’s less energy and inspiration.
H: You are remarkably open in this work and in past interviews. Where does this trust in your readers come from?
IA: When I wrote my first memoir, people asked the same question. Don’t you feel too exposed and vulnerable after revealing all your intimacy? Actually, it is not telling the truth that makes us vulnerable, it’s keeping secrets. I have not done anything so awful in my life that I need to hide it. We are all flawed. All families are crazy. The response of my readers to this candor has been fantastic. I get thousands of letters from all over the world—I am not exaggerating—from people who connect to my personal story. How could I not trust my readers?
H: What has been the best thing about moving to the U.S.? The worst?
IA: The best thing has been my love with Willie, my current husband. We have been in love for 20 years, a true miracle considering our cultural differences. It’s very difficult to be married to me! I am a bossy, jealous and demanding Latin American wife. In the U.S., I feel free. There’s space for everybody. I love this country. I don’t like at all what it has become under the Bush administration but I am hopeful that things will change for the better soon. To answer the second part of your question, I think that the worst thing about the U.S. is racism, a fascination with violence, and a messianic superiority complex. For me, personally, there has been nothing bad about moving here. I have not lost my immediate family (my son and grandchildren), my language, my culture or my inspiration. Life in the U.S. has been very good for me.
H: Do you feel any urgency about telling the North American story as successfully as you’ve told the South American story in books like House of the Spirits?
IA: I don’t feel compelled to write the North American story in particular. There are thousands of American writers doing it. But there are stories set here that interest me. I have written a few books set in the U.S.: The Infinite Plan, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, The Sum of Our Days and the novel I am writing now... On January 8, 2008, I started a novel about slavery. It’s not a happy subject but I feel so compelled to explore it that there’s nothing else that I want to be doing right now.
H: The “sum of our days” sounds like such a final statement. What is “final” about this work?
IA: On the last page of the book it says “[The] End... for the moment.” That is not a final statement. Probably in 10 years I will write another memoir, depending on how crazy my life will be. I don’t want a happy and peaceful old age; I want a passionate and melodramatic life so that I will always have a lot of material.
Bibliography
Isabel Allende’s works take a reader deep INTO not only into her personal history, but into those of her many characters. A list of some of her best works.
Ines of My Soul (2006)
Spanish conquistadora Ines Suarez, who during the beginning of the Spanish conquest worked to build the nation of Chile, is the focus of this work of historical fiction.
Forest of the Pygmies (2005)
The third installment in the adventures of Alexander Cold as he joins a search party in Africa and discovers a clan of Pygmies and a harsh world of corruption and slavery.
Zorro (2005)
The swashbuckling story behind Diego De la Vega, a son of early California of Spanish and Native American descent, of old world and new. As he grows into manhood he is both torn and enlightened by his dual heritage.
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004)
In this sequel to City of Beasts, Alexander Cold, his intrepid grandmother and his best friend go in the search of a sacred statue and an oracle that can foretell the future of the kingdom.
My Invented Country (2003)
Allende conjures up her childhood memories in this personal tome about her relationship with her native Chile. Known for her candor, the author exposes some of her most intimate moments and describes the struggle to find a sense of place.
City of the Beasts (2002)
In Allende’s first novel for children, Alexander Cold and his grandmother, a reporter for a travel magazine, embark on a journey to find the mythic Yeti of the Amazon.
Portrait in Sepia (2000)
A sequel to Daughter of Fortune, this follow-up historical novel ties together all of the aspects of Aurora del Valle’s life, from her early years in San Francisco’s Chinatown to her wealthy life in Chile.
Daughter of Fortune (1999)
Deeply in love with a man from another class, Chilean-born Eliza follows her lover to California during the gold rush in his search of fast fortune. Pregnant with his child, her journey of pursuit becomes one of self-discovery.
Aphrodite (1997)
In this very personal novel, Allende is both memoirist and reporter as she delves into the romantic aspects of food and how romance feeds the soul.
Paula (1995)
Written for Allende’s daughter Paula who suddenly enters a comma. In this book, a compilation of notes Allende made while Paula was in the hospital, she tells her daughter her and her family’s story.
The Infinite Plan (1993)
In Allende’s first novel set in the U.S., self-taught preacher Gregory Reeves settles in a racially tense and divided Los Angeles and explores the mysterious world of the barrio.
Stories of Eva Luna (1991)
This book reunites the lives of some of the most memorable characters of Eva Luna in 23 different stories of love and violence that are all related in a very special way.
Eva Luna (1988)
An orphaned 6-year-old begins a personal journey that leads the reader through a politically and culturally tumultuous era in an unnamed Latin American region.
Of Love and Shadows (1987)
This book is a testament to some of the dramatic situations that befall people living in complex and diverse Latin America—a place that still suffers from social injustice and searches continuously for an identity—while at the same time crafting a story of hope and above all, love.
The House of Spirits (1985)
Allende’s debut novel burst onto the literary scene establishing her as a master storyteller. This novel chronicles a wealthy Latin American family whose empire starts to crumble as the novel develops.
 6 Questions
for Silvana Paternostro
Scribe Silvana Paternostro brilliantly blends memoir with narrative journalism in her
eye-opening new tome My Colombian War: A Journey Through the Country I Left Behind.
Colombia is like a torn, misshapen a little doll, explains Silvana Paternostro. The small head leads through the long neck to the chubby body of the interior and to the limbs, all distinct, disjointed and of various size, all parts working independently and in spite of each other. This is how she sees the country with which she has a tenuous relationship. Paternostro is both enthralled by Colombia’s mysteries and repelled by the nation’s disunion and refusal to acknowledge internal problems. A child of the highest caste, she is at once a witness in the social divisions and a participant. As a seasoned journalist trained in the United States, she observes her history and country with a critical eye.
In this, her second book, the Barranquilla native, who left the country as a teen for a North American education, returns to her country as both an information-hungry journalist intent on understanding an impending civil war and the narco-traficking/guerrilla situation, and as a woman aching to learn more about the country and family she left behind.
In 1998, the author published In the Land of God and Man: A Latin Woman’s Journey, in which she explores the restrictive and subjugated traditional role carved out for women in Latin America and its relationship to religion, sex, culture AIDS and abortion.
In an interview with Hispanic, Paternostro discusses her writing, her journey home and what changes must be made.
 Hispanic Magazine: In the book, you are at once a journalist delving into your subjects and a Colombian on a personal mission to reconnect to your roots. How have you dealt with this?
Silvana Paternostro: I feel I am always both. There are times when one fights to come out more, but the two are always present. I know that there are appropriate moments for each, but they are always present, and sometimes one wants to come out at the wrong time. Its like having multiple personalities. I don’t know that they leave me at any time. But having both sides is a plus in the world of journalism and storytelling, I can see from the outside and I can see from the inside.
HM: You’ve had two balance two sides of your identity: gringa and Colombian, American liberal and descendant of Colombian conservative, and journalist versus family member. Do you think there has come a point or will come a point where the two sides will blend cohesively?
SP: I don’t know what’s going to happen now that I have finished the book, but up until now the two have always lived entangled. It’s also been where my inspiration comes from, from being part of two worlds. I like to call it bicultural schizophrenia. I can only tell stories that are confusing to me; in telling the story, I can clarify it for myself. If you read my two books, I have been compelled to write about things I don’t understand about my upbringing. My first book is about what it’s like to grow up female in Latin America and the consequences of being a woman living under patriarchy and being raised with a religion that is unequal to women. So I wrote about that.
This new book is another war. I have been confused about why Colombia is so violent and why Colombians are rather uninterested in understanding the roots of that violence. So I decided to write that story, and as I start to research and write, I start understanding and slowly I shed my confusion in my book. I think that’s why everybody writes.
With this book. I’ve given myself a history lesson about Colombia and by doing so I give the reader one too. It’s important, I think, to make sense of the situation, but my feeling is that like me, Colombians are ignorant when it comes to know the history of the conflict, what brought it about. For example, the period of La Violencia is not part of the consciousness of today and that bloody period is a continuation of today’s.
HM: You write about the divisions in Colombian society, and that historically, there has been little effort to unite. Do you foresee this changing?
SP: I hope that Colombians recognize the need to have an open society, and that for this doll, for this country to be healthy, to stop bleeding it needs to be treated with care in all the parts that are broken. Colombians needs to be inclusive in the way they see regions and political differences. It needs to be united with its differences instead of continuing the separation. I call the present situation a fiefdom of atrophies, each broken part fighting alone to survive. It is not a country that operates with the strength of its institutions working for everyone equally. It works on who screams louder on each one of these fiefs. Colombia is a country of bleeding fiefs.
HM: You write having come from a specific vantage point, one side of the class division. Were you worried that as a journalist this would blur your perception of what was happening?
SP: I didn’t come in with a Colombian perspective; I came in to tell the story I formed in my head as an American reporter. I knew I came from one side. I knew that as a Colombian, I was the granddaughter of a conservative land owner, but I really didn’t know what that meant in the context of the socio-economic history of the conflict, so I used my journalism skills to find out my own story. Because by telling that story I could tell the story of the country. I was doing a story on myself. It could have been an assignment to profile myself as a subject. It was pretty nutty. It wasn’t an easy book to write.
HM: Toward the end of your book, you describe a child who is one of the few survivors of a massacre on his village. You ask ‘What kind of Colombian will he be?’ What do you suspect?
SP: That unless we create a collective memory and start talking about reconciliation instead of continuing the violent polarization, this boy will continue to live in a Colombia with massacres in the countryside. They have always existed. We need a rule of law, we need to make a conscientious effort to first of all make all the sides of the conflict sit down, and we are not there yet. I don’t see a different history, right now. Feudalism is very difficult to erode. The killing continues and the sides are still intolerant. In Colombia there are only two sides, you are one thing or you are the enemy, from both sides. There is no room for middle ground.
HM: What are your hopes for this book?
SP: I hope it is read. I hope it is read by Colombians because I think it is a mirror to what’s happening, but it’s also a mirror to myself, someone who grew up with two countries. So in that way it’s also an ode to what home means when you are a hyphen in the U.S. I think it’s a book that explains Colombia, and it’s a journey that illuminates what it’s like for expats or those who live between two cultures, especially for any of us that comes from a Latin American background.
My Colombian War is a universal journey about how difficult it is for globalization to survive with war lords. We see it in other places, not just in Colombia. But in the end, this book is about the meaning of home, about finding a place where you, me, anybody, feels they are safe and accepted.
Top Shelf
Consider stocking your bookcase with some of these new titles sure to inspire, inform or entertain.
 Spain, Take This Chalice from Me
and Other Poems
By César Vallejo; Translation by Margaret Sayers Peden; Introduction by Ilan Stavans
Penguin Classic
$16
The exigent and controversial work of Peruvian poet César Vallejo comes to life again in a new English translation along with its Spanish predecessor. Celebrated scholar Ilan Stavans inaugurates the tome with an eye-opening introduction.
 Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
By Samantha Power
Penguin
$32.95
The Pulitzer Prize winning author chronicles the life and death of humanitarian Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian-born United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. During his long tenure he devoted his life to the negotiation of peace whether with Marxist radicals, warlords or militia until his untimely death from a suicide bomber in Baghdad in 2003.
 God’s Spy: A Novel
By Juan Gomez-Jurado
Plume
$14
Another Vatican conspiracy theory thriller captures the minds of the world. This break-out bestseller in Spain tells the story of Police Inspector Paola Dicanti’s search for a serial killer targeting the clergy in the days just after the death of Pope John Paul II.
 Not Anything
By Carmen Rodrigues
Berkeley
$9.99
Rodrigues’ debut novel introduces us to Miami native Susie Shannon, a strong young woman determined to take care of herself when friends and family wander out of her life. Yet her best-laid plans could fall by the wayside when she meets a questionable type in need of her help.
 Names on a Map: A Novel
By Benjamin Alire Sáenz
HarperCollins
$14.95
In 1967 El Paso, the Espejo family undergoes tumultuous times as their eldest son dodges the draft and travels to Mexico. In a land he has little connection to, he sets off a series of events with disastrous result.
 Tales from the Town of Widows
By James Cañón
Harper
Perennial
$24.95
Cañón’s debut novel begins in Colombia’s Mariquita village when guerrillas move in to force the local men to join their rebellion against the government. After their departure with nearly all the men, the village quickly devolves until a matriarch takes over and attempts to make the town into a new utopia.
Book Report
By VICTOR CRUZ-LUGO
Two volumes provide insight in their very different dissections of Hispanic culture and contributions.
 His Panic
By Geraldo Rivera
Celebra Books
www.penguin.com
We have long become accustomed to the many faces and moods of Emmy Award- winning television journalist Geraldo Rivera. In His Panic, we are treated to an extended work of his reportage as he tackles the subject of immigration reform.
Taking as its starting point an explosive televised confrontation on the subject of immigration reform with Fox News talk show host and colleague Bill O’Reilly, His Panic methodically attacks all of the myths and canards about illegal immigration.
Here Rivera reviews the most significant developments shaping the immigration debate taking readers on a contemporary history tour of subjects ranging from the history of the word Hispanic to the hidden and not-so-hidden racism lurking in the depths of so much anti-immigrant thinking. While making the case for a reasonable and fair-minded approach toward reform, Rivera also tells the story of his own Puerto Rican (and Jewish) roots and their critical impact on his career.
Even in his prose, Rivera cannot resist falling into his blustery, in-your-face style to drive home a point. But here, buttressed by hard facts gleaned in thorough research, Rivera’s rhetoric and edginess assume a genuine and sustained gravitas rarely achieved on TV.
 The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture
By Henry Kamen
HarperCollins
www.harpercollins.com
For the past five centuries, Spain has produced an astonishing number of exiles and ex-pats. From Jews in 1492 to leading artists of the 20th century, it has thrown out or snubbed its native talents. In The Disinherited, eminent Brit historian Henry Kamen explores Spain’s intellectual and cultural character by taking stock of its many exiles.
Kamen finds Spain to be a “special case” in European civilization. By repeatedly driving out essential cultural minorities and vital segments of its intellectual elite, Spain participated in its own impoverishment. The result was a nation with a compromised identity, an anemic intellectual elite and a confused cultural legacy. Meanwhile, Spain’s greatest cultural achievements were often the work of the intellectual orphans it repeatedly expelled or neglected.
The Disinherited surveys the lives of Spain’s most accomplished exiles while presenting a 500-year conversation about the character of the nation’s soul. Many Spains are revealed in this sweeping work. There is the Spain of those who remained, there is the Spain of those who left, and then there is the Spain of Kamen’s assessment, made after an exhaustive survey of the lives, thinking and art of the nation’s brightest citizens. And in and between the lines, there are clues to our own Hispanic identity.
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