The sum of our days

Name: The sum of our days
Author: Unknown Author
ISBN: 9780007269488

by Unknown Author

301 pages2008Fourth EstateISBN 9780007269488

Biography

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About this book

A brilliant memoir from the celebrated Chilean novelist on friends, family and life in California, her adopted home. Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, 'The House of the Spirits', was based on her Chilean childhood, and other autobiographical works include the deeply moving 'Paula' - a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma - and the fascinating 'My Invented Country', which explored the events of her native Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup. Now, in 'The Sum of the Days', we have Isabel describe in an exceptionally vivid, human and deeply personal way her life in California where she has lived for more than 25 years. The first page picks up from where Paula ends - her daughter never did wake up from her coma and died in 1992 - when Allende recounts spreading Paula's ashes in her favourite part of the woods by their home. It is fair to say that Isabel has never recovered from losing her daughter but has managed to survive by keeping her husband, son, grandchildren as well as close friends - kindred spirits - central to her life. The book is particularly illuminating and revealing about her working life - she must begin every new book she writes on January 8th or else abandon it for a year. 'The Sum of the Days', based on Allende's own journals and daily correspondence with her mother in Chile, reveals the author to be a dazzling, generous, warm and hysterically funny matriarch within her swirl of family and friends.

Publication Details

Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 2008
Pages: 301
ISBN: 9780007269488
Language: en

About Unknown Author

Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (Lima, Perú; 2 de agosto de 1942) es una escritora chilena con nacionalidad estadounidense, de ascendencia hispano-portuguesa y nacida en Perú. Desde 2004 es miembro de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Letras. Obtuvo el Premio Nacional de Literatura de su país en 2010. La venta total de sus libros alcanza 73 millones de ejemplares y sus obras han sido traducidas a 42 idiomas. Es considerada como la escritora viva más leída del mundo de la lengua española. Sobrina y ahijada del expresidente chileno Salvador Allende (1970 - 1973), comenzó su carrera literaria como periodista. Tras el la muerte de su tío en el golpe militar de Chile en 1973 y el derrocamiento del gobierno de coalición, Isabel Allende abandonó Chile y se refugió en Venezuela. Su primera novela, *La casa de los espíritus* (1985), que surgió directamente de su exilio, se convirtió en un éxito de ventas y crítica mundial. A menudo entreteje elementos de mito y realismo, o lo que se conoce como "realismo mágico". Sus novelas a veces se basan en su propia infancia y experiencias vitales. ---------- Isabel Allende was born on 2 August 2 1942 in Lima, Peru. The niece and goddaughter of Salvador Allende, the former president of Chile from 1970 to 1973, she started her writing career as a journalist. Several months after her uncle's assassination and the overthrow of Chile's coalition government in 1973, Allende left Chile and found refuge in Venezuela. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits (1985), which arose directly out of her exile, became a worldwide bestseller and critical success. She often weaves together elements of myth and realism, or what is known as "magic realist." Her novels are sometimes based on her own childhood and life experiences. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author."