She writes of her own Chilean childhood, the violent death of her uncle, Salvador Allende, and the family's flight to Venezuela from the oppressive Pinochet regime. Her mother, as she watched by Paula's bedside, began to write this book, driven by a desperation to communicate with her unconscious daughter. In 1991, while living in Madrid with her husband, Paula was felled by porphyria, a rare blood disease, and, despite endless care by her mother and husband, lapsed into an irreversible coma. A magician with words, Allende makes this grim scenario into a wondrous encounter with the innermost sorrows and joys of another human being. Writing nonfiction for the first time, she interweaves the story of her own life with the slow dying of her 28-year-old daughter, Paula. Her novels and memoirs have been translated into over 40 languages.Allende is a mesmerizing novelist (The House of the Spirits The Stories of Eva Luna) who here takes on a double challenge. Allende has spoken at universities throughout South America and the US. Much like Gabrielle García Marquez, the author uses magical realism frequently in her work. The memoir is written as a letter to her daughter, Paula, detailing Allende’s early life, her exile in Venezuela, and the things that her daughter was missing while comatose. It was written both during and after her daughter fell into a persistent vegetative state as a result of a medication interaction. Paula was also a project born of Allende’s grief. The book is loosely based on a letter she wrote him to “keep him alive, at least in spirit.” She wrote her first novel, The House of the Spirits, as a way of coping with her grandfather’s eminent passing while she was away. Isabel Allende’s writing career began in earnest while she and her young family were on exile in Venezuela following a coup in her native Chile (her mother and diplomat stepfather narrowly escaped assassination).
A Near Fine Book in a Near Fine Dust Jacket.
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