Author: Isabel Allende
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 199
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8172235100
Description
My Invented Country is a memoir in which truth is most definitely stranger than fiction. In this charming book, portraits of her family and friends jostle with vivid descriptions of local customs and beliefs but through it all strides the indomitable figure of the young Isabel.
Exploring the events of her life and those of the country in which she lived until the assassination of her cousin, the president Salvador Allende in Pinocher’s military coup, Allende takes us on a highly personal tour through her homeland, bringing it to life. This is where her grandfather saw the devil on a bus, recognizing him because of his green cloven hooves like a billygoat and her great aunt sprouted wings, a place of love charms, ghosts and continual family feuds.
Rebellious and passionate, a feminist long before she knew what feminism was, her lover for (sometimes exasperation with) Chile informs every live. And her experiences make for unforgettable, often hilarious, reading that no admirer of Allende’s writing will want to miss.
At my age, you begin to remember things that have been erased from your mind for half a century. I haven’t thought about my childhood or adolescence for decades. In truth those periods of my remote past matter so little to me that when I look at my mother’s photograph albums I don’t recognize anyone except a bulldog with the improbable name of Pelvina Lopez-Pun, and the only reason she is etched in my mind is because we were very much alike. There is a snapshot of the two of us when I was a few months old, in which my mother had to indicate with an arrow which of us was which.