Through the windows of her house, you can see the San Francisco Bay. Isabel Allende (84) loves to get lost in her solitude, she stays away from unnecessary noise and delves into words to continue telling stories that have so far made her sell over 80 million books in 42 languages. Considered the most commercially successful writer in the Spanish language, the Peruvian-Chilean writer has won the Planeta Prize.
She has never lost her spirit, the spark of joy. She married for the third time and is as in love as if it were the first time. For her, the exchange of glances and skin-to-skin contact are vital. She is a big child who feeds on the present, although from time to time her mind goes back to the past when family and friends gathered in the kitchen to chat and make cookies. The lucky man is the prestigious lawyer Roger Cukras, whom she met by chance because the lawyer had fallen deeply in love with the voice of the author of The House of the Spirits (1982) while listening to her on the car radio. A courtship of several emails led to the encounter and the spark ignited.
A few months ago, in August, she explained that it was the perfect time to fall in love. She said she no longer has to take care of her parents or grandchildren and that now her responsibilities focus on her husband and their two dogs. She defined love in old age as a gift.
Her first husband was engineer Miguel Frías, with whom she married at 19 and from their relationship, their two only children were born, Paula (1963), whose early years were spent between Belgium and Switzerland and, after returning to Chile, Nicolás was born (1967). Her devotion to her eldest daughter was such that she co-founded the first women's magazine in Chile in her honor. At just 29 years old, the young woman died of porphyria, and she dedicated her book, Paula (1994) as a catharsis to accept (without forgetting) the loss. Two years later, she created the Isabel Allende Foundation in her honor. Her son Nicolás is happily married and has two children in their thirties.
During the Pinochet coup in 1973, President Salvador Allende, her father Tomás' brother, died (rumors between suicide and murder), so Isabel and her family went into exile in Venezuela. Different events led to Isabel and Miguel divorcing in 1987. The following year, she said "I do" again with lawyer Willie Gordon, who also experienced the tragedy of losing two of his three children from a previous relationship due to drugs.
At Isabel's urging, he purged his sadness through writing, debuting as a crime novel author. The large family lived in San Rafael (California), everything seemed harmonious, but the lack of romantic love eventually destroyed a marriage based on twenty-seven years of experiences. They divorced in 2015 and remained friends until Willie's death in March 2019. Four months later, she remarried in a discreet ceremony in Washington.