SOURCE: Allende, Isabel with Farhat Iftekharuddin. “An Interview with Isabel Allende.” In Speaking of the Short Story: Interviews with Contemporary Writers, edited by Farhat Iftekharuddin, Mary Rohrberger, and Maurice Lee, pp. 3-14. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997.

In the following interview, Allende discusses stylistic and thematic aspects of The Stories of Eva Luna.

Isabel Allende, a Chilean, was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942. Her career covers a wide range of experiences including journalism and teaching. She has taught at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Montclair College, New Jersey, and as late as 1989, she taught creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the international bestsellers The House of the Spirits (1981), The Infinite Plan (1991), Of Love and Shadows (1984), Eva Luna (1987), and The Stories of Eva Luna (1990). Her latest book is Paula (1994), a memoir of her heartbreaking experience watching her daughter die a prolonged death...