My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile

by Isabel Allende

  This book is based in memory, but I have been aided by the comments of friends: Delia Vergara, Malú Sierra, Vittorio Cintolessi, Josefina Rosetti, Agustín Huneeus, Cristián Toloza and others. I have also called on works by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, Eduardo Blanco Amor, Benjamín Subercaseaux, Leopoldo Castedo, Pablo Neruda, Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, Jorge Larraín, Luis Alejandro Salinas, María Luisa Cordero, Pablo Huneeus, and many more. I am grateful, as always, to my mother, Francisca Llona, and to my stepfather, Ramón Huidobro, for helping me with various dates and for correcting the final text. Also to my faithful agents, Carmen Balcells and Gloria Gutiérrez, to my copy-editor, Jorge Manzanilla, and to my North American editor, Terry Karten.

  About the Author

  Author photograph by William Gordon

  ISABEL ALLENDE is the bestselling author of twelve works of fiction, four memoirs, and three young adult novels, which have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages, with more than fifty-seven million copies sold. In 2004, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award in 2012. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

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  Praise for My Invented Country

  “Charming and entertaining. . . . Some of the loveliest writing is about her maternal grandfather . . . the picture of him that she creates in these pages is full-bodied and affecting.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Isabel Allende [is] surely one of the most graceful and yet haunting writers alive.”

  —St Louis Post-Dispatch

  “At every bend, [Allende] delights us with unexpected humor.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Queer and colorful anecdotes of the Allende clan, many of which will be familiar to loyal readers of Allende’s work, succeed in making My Invented Country come alive. . . . Magnificent tales of life in the old country.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Marvelous. . . . Allende’s love for Chile is so evident and eloquent that many readers will consider packing their bags and booking the next flight to Santiago.”

  —BookPage

  “This is an interior travelogue, not so much a trip through Chile as a trip through this supreme storyteller’s memory of it. . . . Allende’s ribald sense of humor, her bite, her self-deprecation, and her sense of the absurd are in fine form here.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “[My Invented Country] is like a painting, a collage of stories and images infused with the same magic, politics, and poetry of her fiction. . . . It is a fascinating insight into the mind of Allende, full of humor and passion.”

  —Globe and Mail

  “A delicious exploration.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “Offers a moving portrait of [Allende’s] native Chile and, by looking back on her youth, family, and country’s history, considers how Chile has shaped her writing.”

  —Library Journal

  “Poignant. . . . Allende’s keen intelligence and lively prose keep readers wishing for more.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Dazzling as a kaleidoscope: an artful tumbling and knocking that throws light and reveals strange depths.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Also by Isabel Allende

  THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS

  OF LOVE AND SHADOWS

  EVA LUNA

  THE STORIES OF EVA LUNA

  THE INFINITE PLAN

  PAULA

  APHRODITE: A MEMOIR OF THE SENSES

  DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE

  PORTRAIT IN SEPIA

  CITY OF THE BEASTS

  KINGDOM OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

  THE SUM OF OUR DAYS

  INES OF MY SOUL

  FOREST OF THE PYGMIES

  Copyright

  First published as Mi País Inventado in Spain in 2003 by Areté.

  The first U.S. edition of this book was published in 2003 by HarperCollins Publishers.

  MY INVENTED COUNTRY. Copyright © 2014 by Isabel Allende. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  First Perennial edition published 2004.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Allende, Isabel.

  [Mi país inventado. English]

  My invented country: a nostalgic journey through Chile / by Isabel Allende; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-06-054564-X

  1. Allende, Isabel. 2. Chile—History—Coup d’état, 1973. 3. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 4. Authors, Chilean—20th century—Biography. I. Peden, Margaret Sayers. II. Title.

  PQ8098.1.L54 Z467 2003

  863'.64—dc21 2002191267

  ISBN 0-06-054567-4 (pbk.)

  EPub Edition March 2014 ISBN 9780062254443

  04 05 06 07 08 /RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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