Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S6 Ep11: Bookshelfie: Isabel Allende

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Bestselling author Isabel Allende on her experiences of love, loss, gratitude and why we need to stay optimistic in uncertain times.  Isabel Allende is an author, philanthropist and activist. She is one of the most widely-read authors in the world, having sold more than 77 million books internationally. Born in Peru to Chilean parents, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, which began as a letter to her dying grandfather.  Since then, she has authored more than twenty six bestsellers including Daughter of Fortune, Paula, and City of the Beasts. And her latest book The Wind Knows My Name is out now. Her writing blends magical realism with political and social commentary, exploring themes of family, love, loss, and social justice. She has been recognized with numerous awards and honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation. Isabel’s book choices are: **The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer **Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar **Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario **Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser **Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve. Today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com. slash Toronto. The best advice I heard it from Elizabeth Gilbert and she said, don't expect your writing to give you fame or money. Do it because you love the process. And if you love the process,

you'll do it no matter what, even if you're not published. And the same can be applied in any other creative work. If you love what you do it, do it, even if there's no money in it, even if there's no fame. Doesn't matter. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I'm your host for season six of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2023 reading list.

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. This year's 202023 shortlist is out now. Have you read any of these six brilliant books yet? Well if not, head over to the Women's Prize website to discover them now. Our guest today is the sensational author, philanthropist and activist Isabel Agende. She is one of the most widely read author. in the world. She sold more than 77 million books internationally. Born in Peru, two Chilean parents, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, which began as a letter to her dying grandfather. Since then, she's authored more than 26 bestsellers, including Daughter of Fortune, Paola, and City of the Beasts.

And her latest book, The Wind Knows My Name, is out this week. Her writing blends magical realism with political and social commentary, exploring themes of family and loss and social justice and love. She has been recognised with numerous awards and honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation. And we are absolutely delighted to have her join the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me as well. Thank you very, very much. And thank you for that lovely introduction. Well, when you hear the accolades and the achievements, when you hear it back like that, How does it feel?

Foreign. You're talking about somebody else. My life is very private, very simple, and it hasn't changed much. Of course, now I have more resources, and I feel that I can, more self-confidence, let's say, about myself and my work. But the rest is just, very similar to the life I had before. And when you made your first foray into writing, when you put pen to paper,

could you have ever imagined it becoming such a successful career? I mean, I assume that's not why you did it. No, I don't think anybody could predict anything like that. The House of the Spirits was one of those miracle books that. And it was published in Spain in September, August, of September of 19, yeah, for 1982. And then my agent took it to the Frankfurt Fair, a month later, every European country bought the book. And it was immediately translated, and it became a huge thing in Europe. I was living in Venezuela.

I had no idea what was going on until a year later when I got my first check. And then I said, oh my God, you can make a living with this thing. But I didn't quit my day job. I quit my day job with my third book. And for someone who takes us to so many different worlds through your writing, which are the worlds that you like to get lost in? What do you like as a reader? I love historical novels.

I like complicated stories about people who survive. ordeals and trauma and get up on their feet and they are full of courage and resilience and joy, mostly women. I'm surrounded by women that are strong and resilient, so I don't have to invent them when I write about them and I love to read about them. Which I think leads us seamlessly onto the first book that you've chosen for your book, Shelfy today, which is the female eunuch by Jermaine Greer. I mean, talk about women.

who stand on their own two feet and who are strong and resilient and teach us to be as well. This is a worldwide bestseller translated into over 12 languages. The female eunuch is a landmark in the history of the women's movement. Drawing liberally from history and literature and popular culture, Jermain Greer's searing examination of women's oppression remains one of the most important publications of the second wave feminist movement. Tell me about this book. Well, I read it at a very important moment in my life.

I was beginning to work as a journalist in Chile, and I had had all this anger against the patriarchy, this feminist impulse, but I couldn't articulate it. I couldn't use it. I couldn't bring it into action. And then I read that book, and I realized that there was an articulate language to express what I was feeling. And it was a language full of humor and irony and intelligence.

and I just adopted the book as a manual almost for my work. So it was very important for me. You say you read it when you started working as a journalist. How did you get into storytelling, into journalism? Why was that a path for you? I don't know. Things just happen. I never studied journalists.

I never thought I could be a journalist. I had been a secretary in the United Nations. And then I got pregnant and I was at home pregnant when someone came to my door and said, we are going to create a feminine, feminist magazine, glossy magazine, and we would like you to contribute. And that was because that person had read a letter that I sent to my mother. And she thought that I had a sense of humor and that I could collaborate with the newspaper. I mean, with this magazine. So I started working as a journalist just by chance.

And it was a wonderful time in my life, really wonderful. You said that at that time you experienced this almost frustration that you can articulate, this movement that you can feel mobilized, you know, it's rising within you. Talk to me about the type of feminist you were in those years. I was just an angry young woman. And then I started working in this magazine. And my colleagues were four very young women, me and three more, nobody was even 30 years old.

But they had been reading feminist books from the United States and the UK. And so they had much more knowledge. They knew exactly what they wanted to portray in this. magazine and and I was just new to the whole thing. I just brought the enthusiasm and the anger. And so then when when I was working with them, I realized that I could bring into action all these feelings. And in a way, in every reporting, in every interview, in everything we did in the magazine, there was a feminist slant. But at the same time, we had beauty and fashion and beauty page and you name it.

So it was a glossy feminine magazine, but when you read whatever, even the captions of the photographs were feminist, you know what is wonderful? Think that this was happening in the 60s in Chile. No one had heard the word feminism yet. At that time, in many households, the magazine was not allowed.

It was supposed to be too radical. It's interesting, isn't it? I remember growing up and not thinking that the word feminist could coexist with also enjoying beauty and fashion and makeup. I remember seeing an article with Chimamanda and Gossi Adichia and she's like, you can be both. You can do both. Absolutely. I have always been a feminist and the first thing I do in the morning before my husband even looks at me is put on my makeup. So that's my life.

And do you do it for him or do you do it for you? For me. I do it for me. Because when I have been alone, the few times that I've been alone, I do just the same. Yeah. It's like brushing my teeth. Your book, The House of the Spirits, I mean, what a success. And it's being touted so often is helping pave the way for Latin American women writers.

You know, you can't be what you can't see. And when you see that, you think, okay, these stories. They need telling. These voices need uplifting. Can you describe the impact that this book, the female eunuch, had on you as a woman and as a woman writer? It gave me almost a manual, a map where the feminist movement was leading. The book was mostly about how the culture keeps women as eunuchs with no power, no self-confidence, no resources. They are limited in every way. We are, I mean, you are very young, so you can't even imagine what it was the life of my

mother, for example. My mother was a talented, smart woman who could never develop anything. She was always submissive. She always depended from a man. she always looked up to him. It was his career which was important, not my mother's talent for painting. She had to accommodate and she had to serve.

And that was the role of women then. So this was exposed in the female eunuch in brutal terms. And it served me well because it gave me the language and the ideas, of course. And when you look at the way, the world around you has changed and the attitude towards the work that you're doing from your childhoods in Santiago you mentioned your mother there as well to being a writer now and you're at home in California are you?

Yeah, I'm in California. The world has changed a lot for women. Writing there, how different is that? Oh, it's completely different. Look, I'm 80 years old and I have seen how feminist has gone through. several waves and it has evolved, not in a straight line, because revolutions are never in a straight line. They go back and forth. There is a backlash. Then you go to extremes. The pendulum goes to one extreme and the other until it finds a place more or less in the middle. And each

generation brings something to the table. What my generation achieved was reinforced by the generations that came after. And I see my granddaughters today who are, for example, dealing with pronouns, with gender parity, with to be gender neutral. That was unthinkable when we started. We were fighting for contraception for in some places for the vote in many places for the right to earn a decent salary that you could collect and not your husband. So that kind of stuff. And from then to what we have today, it's a big, big change. But we still have a lot to do because we are talking about women in industrialized nations,

in some parts of the world, but not everywhere. And I have a foundation whose mission it is to invest in the power of women and girls worldwide. And we deal with, I mean, And we try to help programs and organizations among people of high, high risk, the poorest of the poor, in places where women are sold at age eight or 10 into premature marriage or servitude, bondage, prostitution. So women today in Afghanistan can't even go to school. They can't get out of their houses. The country is starving, literally starving.

And the aid cannot get to the women who need it the most because the men who distribute the food that comes from international aid cannot go to a woman who is alone. The men can only deal with men. And so women are left angling there with their children. They can't work, they can't get out, and they can't receive the aid. So that's what's happening today in 2023, in one part of the world. So we still have a lot to do.

We have so much to do. And I'm looking forward actually to talking to you a little bit more about your foundation in relation to one of the books that you have coming up on your list. But right now we move on to your second bookshelfy book, which is Memoirs of Hadrian by Margaret Yosenar. framed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, the novel recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient worlds. The emperor mediates on his past, describing his extension,

military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule, a book meticulously researched, which captures the living spirit of the emperor and of ancient Rome. Can you tell us about why you picked this book? Because to me, that was, or that is, an example of extraordinary historical fiction. And I love to write historical fiction. And when I read that book, I had a feeling of the research, which is not obvious in the book.

It flows in the book as part of the story. The reader never feels the obstacle of the research. The research is part of the next. narrative. It's part of life. And when I, I have written several historical novels, I always refer to that book thinking, that's the way I wanted to read, like navigating in very calm waters. And you can tell the most horrific story. As long as the research doesn't show, it works. I had that experience with a very difficult book that I wrote. called Island Beneath the Sea. And it is the story of the slave revolt in Haiti in 1800, the only slave revolt in history that has succeeded and created the first independent nation in Latin America.

The research about slavery was so awful, so awful, that I got really sick to the point that I thought I had stomach cancer. I would throw up. I couldn't lie flat on my back. It was just awful. And then I stopped the research. I stopped the book and I said, I can't deal with this.

And then I remember Marguerite Dier-S-N-R. And I thought, well, there is a way of telling this in which I can engage the reader. I have to get the voice of the narrator like Hadrian. I have to get that voice that tells the story from within and carries you along this horrible path that the revolution was. And I finished the book and it was published and I'm very proud of that book. I'm proud of the research too.

So thanks to Margaret, yours and I. It's a really beautiful way of putting it the way you've just described that process of taking us along on this journey, on this adventure, showing this world that is so meticulously researched in all of your novels that I've read. I've been so educated. You know, I've learned a lot about a part of the world that I am fascinated about historically, but through stories that are beautiful.

What does that process look like? When you decide, okay, I'm going to make this novel. I want to begin on this journey right from the outset. You've chosen a period in history. What next? How does it work, the research process? I need the characters. The characters will carry the story.

And when I start, I have, research a time, a place, and possibly an event. But I don't know who is going to tell the story or how. So in developing the characters, I create the foundation to tell the story. And I have to become each one of the characters so that I can live the story. And how do I do that by imagining everything about the character? And then when I describe a scene, let's say a battle, for example, I try to be in the battle as one of the characters and feel it with all my senses. I need the smell, the noise, the texture of blood, of gumpowder, of suffering, of death, the smell of dead horses, for example, or the smell of dead horses, for example, or the, or the

carcasses that are being burnt and all that needs to come to the story and that is not part of the research that is part of the human being in the place and that doesn't change because the feelings are the same today as they were 500 years ago in Africa or in a Scandinavian country the human feelings and relationships are the same yeah you've taken us all over the world and throughout history in your writing, you're such a prolific author and so many ideas must have come to, you've embodied so many characters. But have you ever had periods where you felt creatively blocked? Yeah, once. Okay. And that was after my daughter died. I think I was brokenhearted and I couldn't do much. I would show up in front of my computer

every day to work and the result was so flat, so gray, that the next day I had to delete it. And this went on for a couple of years. And then I remembered that I am a journalist by training and that if I'm given a subject and enough time to research, I can write about a lot of stuff. So I gave myself a subject that would be as far removed from death and soul. and illness and loss as possible. And I decided to write about Aphrodisiacs, which are the bridge between gluttony and lust.

So it was a happy book to research and a happy book to write. And that sort of pulled me out. It's non-fiction. It pulled me out of the writer's blog. So now I remember that if I am not inspired by a story or the desire of writing a novel, I can always go back to nonfiction, to a memoir or to something like that.

You put your journalistic head on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it a therapeutic process? It was, and it was fun, because, you know, there is a lot written about food. You know, there's TV channels and programs and everybody's a footie. But about eroticism, real eroticism

that is not pornography. there is very little, very little that is worth reading or looking at. So the research in that area was interesting. When I was 19 years old, I packed my bags and went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to write for a newspaper as a journalist. And the first article they gave me was about erotic art, exploring erotic art in the city. My mom was like, what are you doing out there? And I was like, mom, it's journalism.

And exploring how it was different to pornography. And I was like, Mom, don't worry. It's completely different. But I'm absolutely fascinated. Yeah, it is different. I mean, someone defined it as eroticism being the feather and pornography being the chicken. It's perfect.

It's perfect. I'm going to get it on a T-shirt. Bayleys is proudly supporting the Women's Prize for Fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Check out Baileys.com for our favourite Bailey's recipes. Your third bookshelfy book, Isabel, is Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nasario.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, two poor to feed her children. leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home. Luddis promises Enriquez that she will return quickly, but she struggles in America. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. After 11 years apart, he sets off alone through hostile lands and risks his life on the journey to be with her. Tell me about when you read this book and why is it important to you? Well, I read this book when my foundation was already working with refugees.

So it just reinforced much of what I had been doing. Now, the book is very interesting because Sonia did the trip. She did the journey from the village all the way to the United States. She came, she rode the trains. She did everything. And she's a good friend. And we've talked often about all this. And my question at the time was, Sonia, there is more and more immigrants in the world.

more and more people searching for refuge and asylum. And these waves of desperate people are just increasing and nobody has a solution. You who have worked so much and who have done the journey, what do you think is the solution? And she said to me something that is my mantra in this area and in the foundation. And that is that nobody wants to leave everything behind, everything that is dear and familiar. And go in a journey, in a dangerous journey,

that might end in a place where you are received with hostility, if not aggression. And you are not welcome. You are never welcome. And the hardships of the trip and of the place where you will arrive at are terrible, but they are less than the struggle to survive in the place you come from. So Sonia's answer was, without solving the problems in the places of origin,

people will get out and will desperately get out. And I remember my own experience. I would have never left Chile and my little house and my friends and my job and my dog and everything I had. If I had not been desperate, afraid that I might be arrested and can. killed. So I did it out of despair. And people do it for that reason. So once we understand that that the first aid, international aid, of course we have to solve the immediate problem of people who are desperate, but we have to try to solve the situation in places of origin. There were no Ukrainian refugees until the war started. No Syrian refugees until 10 years ago when the civil

war started in Syria. And Syrians will still come out and Ukrainians will still come out for as long as this is not solved in their countries. We have to look at the source of this problem. This is something that is articulated and described. This is a story in your new book, The Wind Knows My Name, which explores the lives of two characters, one leaving Vienna, in 1938 on the last Kinder Transport train out of Nazi Austria, and another fleeing El Salvador to seek refuge in the US. Do you see fiction as a vehicle for change in the negative way that refugees are often sadly represented in today's culture in the media? Few people read comparatively. I mean, everybody watches TV and people read the news in their thoughts. or the newspapers, but few people read fiction. So the impact of a book is very limited.

And when I write fiction, I'm not trying to deliver a message or change anybody. Because the people who will pick up my books and like them already think that way. They already have the seed of that compassion or whatever it is in their minds and hearts. I'm only putting in words something that is already there. I get a lot of letters. I mean, every day when I open the computer, it's almost discouraging because I think, am I going to be able to answer this today?

Because it's a rosary of messages. Many of them say, especially from women, young women, who say, you changed my life. And I always replied the same thing. I didn't change anything. I just made you aware of who do you. you already wear. You already are this person.

You are just not aware. You are not narrating yourself in the words that I can narrate you, but this is you. And I'm very aware of that. So when I, you ask me if I'm trying to change anybody or change the narrative about immigration, I don't have that power. I'm not so ambitious. If I can touch one person, I am happy. But that's not my job.

My job is to tell a story. And why did you want to tell this story? Why did you want to tell it now? Because I've been telling stories about refugees and immigrants and displaced people. I would say my last four or five books. It's because it's in the air. Why do I become suddenly passionate about something? Probably because I feel.

the vibes in the air. It comes from every direction. It penetrates me. And I become more and more aware and more passionate about something. And I know that this is a calling that something is knocking at the door and says, a story is and saying, tell me, tell me, write me. I am the story that you need to tell now. And that is what happened with this book. This book, this book, coincided the origin of the book with Trump's policy of separating the children from their parents at the border, at the southern border of the United States.

Now, why is this antagonism, this terrible hostility toward the immigrants that come from the South? Of course, the numbers, but mostly because they are people of color. If they came from Scandinavian countries, they would be received happy. and there would be a place in this country for them,

but they are people of color. And when they come here, they do the kind of menial job badly paid in terrible circumstances that no American would do, and they are needed. But still, there is this narrative against the immigrants, especially against the Latinos. So when this policy happened,

And one of the organizations that my foundation helps told me about the case of a little girl who was blind, who was separated from the mother. Her name was Juliana. And she came with a little brother, Juan. And I followed the story. And it is appalling the brutality and the lack of compassion from everybody. from the border patrol officer that separated them, first interrogated them and separated them. Then the system that puts the kids in cages,

the disconnection, nobody thought of reunification. They only thought of separation. The mother who is placed in a detention center, which is a horrible prison far away and doesn't have any contact with their kids. And for eight months, these people cannot be in touch with each other. And finally, they are all in front of a judge who deports them all. And they are all deported to Mexico, which is not really their country,

where they disappear and we never hear from them again. So that is the story that inspired this book. The stories of these atrocities and the way in which the truth and the voices of those who are victims have been silenced are running through this book. I read Violetta as well. And in both stories we have these foundations. We have these people who are fighting for justice,

these people who are fighting for those silent stories to be told to the world again. The Isabel La Gente Foundation, which was set up in 1996, has awarded grants to much, more than 100 non-profits worldwide delivering life-changing care to hundreds of thousands of women and girls. We know historically women and girls so often their voices have been silence. Why is it so important to you to uplift and to help those who have had so much stripped away

from them? Because I have immense admiration for those people who are working in the fields to make a difference. In the news, we only get the bad news. We only hear about the atrocities in the border. We only hear about the rapes and the corruption of the police and the soldiers and the madas and the gangs and the narcos. And we never hear about the thousands of people who are helping. And those are the people I'm most interested in for my stories.

for my writing and I know them personally. I have great admiration. They're mostly women because there is no fame, no glory, no money in this job, just hard work and heartbreak. Women do it. And I am touched by it. So that's what I want to tell. And why do I want to help?

Because I have a lot of resources. My books, fortunately, sell very well, but I don't need that kind of money. I have a small house with one bedroom. I have an old car. I have two dogs that are mats. My life is simple. And I don't wear fashion or I don't need any of that. So I can use these resources in something that gives me.

pleasure. This is my luxury to be able to help. And what a luxury is, what an important one. Oh, it is. It comes back multiplied. It does come back. It feels a lot better than anything else. Yes, it does. Well, let's talk about your fourth book, Shelfy book now because you've touched on relationships, family, losses, love, beauty. And this is a book that will bring all of those to the forefront. It is broken open by Elizabeth Lesser. In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories, humorous insights, practical guidance and personal memoir, Lesser offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge. Will we be broken down and defeated or broken open and transformed? Drawing on the world's great spiritual and psychological traditions to support us as we too learn to break open and blossom into who we were meant to be.

What does this book mean to you? Like the female eunuch, Emmanuel, Emmanuel into how to conduct your life. Elizabeth is a very, very close friend. Unfortunately, she lives in Washington, but, no, upstate New York. But we get to see each other because her son lives here close to my house. So we get to see each other a lot.

And I love this woman. Every time I am with her, I learned something. And the book is a sort of summary of who she is, of the kind of life she has, she's a seeker. Since she was a child, she has been seeking for truth, for meaning. And this is reflected in everything she does, in her life, in the way she is and the way she talks. So when in doubt, I go to that book. And I find their answers for things that are the questions of life. How do we want to live?

What are we thankful for? What do we have to let go? What is the purpose of life? Why am I holding to this grudge? Let's see what Elizabeth has to say about that. So in a way, for me, it replaces religion, which I don't have. It's like a spiritual guide for you. Yeah.

And some of the questions that you asked there, I'd love to ask you. What are you thankful for? Oh, my dear, I wake up every morning at half past five, around five o'clock in the morning. And it's still dark. And I wake up and the two dogs are on my bed and my husband. And I'm so grateful that I am in such good company, that this old woman is not alone. She has these beautiful creatures, a loving husband and two smelly dogs. What else can I ask for?

And then I open the window. And out there is the lagoon and the ducks and maybe the pelicans. And it's foggy. There is fog. And then slowly the fog lifts. and I see the world coming to life. And I am grateful that I am part of this world. And then I know that my day begins with purpose.

I have something to do. I have a story to write. I have to contact some people through the foundation that I am doing some work with. I have friends. Some of them might be sick. I have to go to the hospital. So there is a community.

I have everything that is needed to have a good old life. My basic resource are met. I have love and a community. I have good health and I have a purpose. What else can I want in life? Gratitude is definitely my favorite feeling. When you bask in it, when you, you know, each morning or evening, I try and write down three things I'm grateful for,

but it makes you then go through the day looking for them because you're excited to get to write them down. So then you see more and more and more. There is so much to be grateful. It opens up. It opens up like Elizabeth says. Once you start, it starts to open up and there's more and more and more. And the abundance of the universe is extraordinary.

You know, for years and years all my life, I would write to my mother every day. I would write at the end of the day, telling her like you say, the day, what am I grateful for? What has happened this? day telling her the stories of the day and some days were pretty bad but there were always something that you can be grateful for and now that my mom is not around she died shortly before the pandemic

i i have had to replace the letter with a mourning gratitude which is just as good you do explore love family like you've just mentioned there loss throughout all of your work right right from, you know, your first novel, what always draws you to love, loss, and family? My own life, I think. My own life. There's been many losses in my life, but a lot of love. Starting with my mother's love that she loved me unconditionally

since before I was born. I was the first, her first child, the only girl, and she would speak to me when I was in her womb. and being, she had a very unhappy marriage. My father was a disaster. And so my mother was constantly finding refuge and companionship in the baby she had inside. And when I was born, that continued, you know, with the baby and then the toddler and then the girl I was. So I always felt that I was a favorite and that my mother loved me more than anything else in the world.

And that gave me the foundation for life. And so love in all its forms, that is not only the love of a couple, the romantic love, and it's not the mother love. But it's the love of ideas, the love of the world, the love of people that you relate to, they are not blood related, but you love them like family, like I love Elizabeth, for example. that that kind of love is to me very interesting because I think it's the force that moves the world. It's not greed, it's not ambition, it's not violence, it's not power. All those things that sustain the patriarchy do not make the world go around. It's love.

It's the love we have for our children, the love of work, the love of one another. That is the real force. There are others are obstacles. We talked there about the things that we are grateful for. Another list that I like to make each day is things that I'm proud of. You've been recognised with numerous awards, numerous honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And you've had this incredible career.

But just from speaking to you over the last, you know, 45 minutes, I feel like it's the loves, the ways that you've helped others that perhaps you'd be proud of. But I could be wrong. What would you say the moments you're most proud of would be? My children, my two children, Paula died too young. She was 28. So she didn't have time to become fully the woman that she could have become. But those 28 years, she was a pretty extraordinary young person.

And my son is really an extraordinary man. He's now 50-something. I don't even know how old he is. And he's an extraordinary person in every way, morally. He's a person that I have never heard him lie, betray, react in a cowardly way. So I think that he was exchanged in the hospital because he has nothing of me. absolutely zero. First of all, he's very tall and slim. And let me tell you, I was five feet tall. Probably now I am three feet tall. So, and I have nothing of his, how can I say, of his absolute goodness.

You know, for years, he wouldn't say, Mom, you lie, but he would imply it. And until he finally understood that it's not a lie, I'm just telling a story. So I'm enhancing everything. He doesn't do that. And so it took him years to understand that enhancing the story is my job. So it's not a character flaw. It's my job. So we get along wonderfully.

And my daughter-in-law is like my daughter. She has replaced Paula in wonderful ways. So I am proud of my relationship with Nico and with Laurie. Very proud. It's time to talk about your fifth and final book that you brought today. And we've just touched on the times that the story, you know, is enhancing the truth. Sometimes we wish it was a little more of a line, a little further from the reality that we know. And yet, alas, here we are.

This is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the classic dystopic. novel of female oppression, which is all too chilling in our modern times. The Handmaid's tale follows Offred who lives in the Republic of Gilead, a place where every person has a purpose, but Gilead only offers Offred one purpose, which is to breed. As someone who has seen and been a staunch advocate of women's rights for decades, what does this book mean to you? And what does it say? I am so glad that this book became a TV series and everybody watched it because, as I said before, not everybody reads. But this dystopian world is a possible world. Because I work with women, very vulnerable women and women at risk, I know that everything that happens in the book

has happened before to women or will happen or is happening. It is so possible that it's no longer a dystopian world is the possible world. And right now in the United States, for example, and in many places this wave of fascism and the patriarchy has, the backlash of the patriarchy has been brutal. Now they are cutting contraception. They already are banning abortion in many places. Rights that women thought they had acquired and were forever. no one thought they were threatened.

Now, they are jeopardized in many places, and they have been banned in other places. Women, as I mentioned before in Afghanistan, that were professionals, lawyers and doctors, that are now under a burqa at home, and they can't get out. So that can happen. And that women become animals for breed, that has happened too.

And that a powerful man as a herd of women, We see it today among some religious groups. So all this is possible and all this is always against women. It's a war against women. And the power of the male and the power of the patriarchy is always about the submission and control of women and women's fertility. We have seen a rollback recently in all these things that were fought for. And achieved, and you're right, you never think that once you've achieved it, there's any chance you're going to lose it again.

And you do, and you do. And you do. I mean, you're in the United States. You live there. How did you feel when Roe versus Wade was overturned? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that it was happening the 21st century in the United States. And this is not a religious theocracy, but it's acting like one.

and this is a minority of people who are doing this. And it's in some parts of the country, but it is a very serious matter. And it affects mostly women who have no means to get an abortion somewhere else. So because the rich women, the wives of the guys who are implementing these laws can get out and get an abortion in California, no problem for them. is for the other women. So it is a very serious matter. But you know, this is like democracy that we take it for granted until we lose it. And because I have lived the process of losing it, I know how easily it happens. In Chile, in 24 hours, the country changed. And the democracy

that we took for granted disappeared for 17 years of dictatorship. That can happen anywhere. So we have to be aware of it. sometimes feel like we're on a knife edge. You are known for you're strong. And I want to say the word complex, but then I also sometimes feel like a complex female character is a female character. We're all complex.

It's just recognizing that. It's showing that. It's allowing these characters to be as nuanced as we, as women are. Do you draw any inspiration from Margaret Atwood and from this book when you're writing? Yes. She's a fabulous storyteller.

Fabulous storyteller. So you become the women there in Gilead. You become the victim. And for me, it's very easy to connect to that because through the foundation, I know many women who are living awful lives. One of the programs that we support is called Too Young to Wed. And this has been going on for a very long time. and we have supported them since the beginning.

And this is a fantastic woman who created an organization to save young girls from premature marriage. In India, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in many places. In Afghanistan, where there is this extreme poverty right now, fathers are selling their daughters into premature marriage for rice. They are no longer called child brides, their rice brides, because that's the need that there is.

And this organization tries to save them. But it's not about buying the girl. You have to support the girl forever until she becomes self-sufficient. There's another problem that we support in Nepal. And in Nepal, there is a fantastic woman again who is now 96, still working, she called Olga Murray, and she has saved 15,000 girls from bondage, little girls that the father sell to become servants with no pay in houses in the cities. These are rural girls from very poor villages. So Olga would pay the father to get the girl, but then she has

to support the girl. She has to give her shelter and education and health, everything the girl needs, until she's a team and she can work and she does it. And so that's the kind of people like Olga Murray and the kind of program that I'm passionate about. It sounds like you draw inspiration from all of these women that you've met that you've worked with. I feel like you see them in the characters and your novels. Looking back on your life and on your career,

what advice would you give to any aspiring writers, any aspiring creatives, any women who feel they have a story to tell? The best advice I heard it from Elizabeth Gilbert. She was talking in a theater. I was with her and somebody asked that from the audience. And she said, don't expect your writing to give you fame or money. Do it because you love the process. And if you love the process, you'll do it no matter what, even if you're not published.

and the same can be applied in any other creative work. If you love what you do, do it. Do it, even if there's no money in it, even if there's no fame. It doesn't matter. So that would be the first advice. And the second, I would give to writers, aspiring writers, is that this is not a hobby. This is not something you do on your spare time. Even if you have a day job, this is your main purpose in life. So you find the time.

It's like falling in love. When you fall in love, you find the place and the time to make love, even if it's in the backseat of a Volkswagen, anywhere. You do it. It's not a compromise when you really want to. You don't compromise. You do it. And you wake up in the middle of the night.

You don't sleep. You don't go out. You don't have weekends. Everything is dedicated to the little time you will have to write. So do it. it and do it regularly. It's like training for sports. You create the muscle. And in sports, you train and train, and nobody cares about the effort that you have spent in that training. The only thing that matters is the final performance, how you play the game. It's the same

with writing. All the effort, all the research, all the hours that you've spent, all the pages deleted, nobody cares about that. The only thing that matters is the final. product, your book. Let us put everything into our writing and into our love. I love that comparison. Isabel, I have one more question to ask you. And it is, if you had to choose just one book from the list that you brought today as a favorite, and I think this is hard because it seems you're friends with quite a lot of

the authors as well. So I don't want you to insult anyone, but which one would it be and why? Probably broken open because it accompanies me. more than the others. The others were like lighthouses that showed me the way. But this one is about normal life, everyday life, everyday little stuff that we have to deal with. You gave us advice for aspiring writers, creatives,

but actually since you've picked your spiritual manual, your guide, what's a little piece of advice for all of us, for those of us who are living in this world that can sometimes feel dark, that can feel so scary to find that light that we've described? Don't worry. Don't worry. I have lived through everything.

And life gets better. I mean, the world is much better today than it was when I was born. I was born in the middle of the Second World War, before the Declaration of Human Rights, before the United Nations, before feminism, before the pill, before penicillin, before everything. So the world evolves for the better, always. But that line is not a straight line.

It goes like a spiral in circles, and you think that you are stuck in a circle, you are not. This is a spiral. The next way around it will be in a higher level and higher and higher. Until we reach the moment of evolution, in which we can say, okay, we got there, but we are far away from there. And every generation brings something to the table. And the world is not as bad at it seems.

Because when we look back, people didn't have the kind of information that we have today. They didn't have the kind of communication. They couldn't open a little thing that looks like a cellular phone and find all the information of the world. Now with artificial intelligence, the things that you can do and that you can know are absolutely incredible, incredible. And all that is dangerous in many ways. It depends on how it's used.

But we go through that stage and then it becomes part of who we are. It's part of our DNA. kids today are born knowing the technology that my father, my stepfather could never learn. He was born before the telephone was installing in Santiago. So, of course, every generation brings something and we are born with the knowledge. So I am very optimistic about the future. I want to live in the future, not in the past. Yeah, me too.

Here we are. I'm hearing that. Yeah. I'm so bullied by it. It's a spiral, not a circle. Please don't despair. There's nothing to despair about. There is all part of the process.

Yeah. Well, you have been so inspirational to talk to. I cannot thank you enough for your time. Isvela Jende. Thank you. Much gracias for joining me today. Thank you so much. I'm Vic Hope,

and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast, is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.