The writer Isabel Allende today asked the “Chilean feminists” not to “stay alone with what he did” the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who in his memoirs confessed to having raped a woman, because if not “no puppet will be left with a head” .
During her speech, the also journalist who lives in California, United States, since 1973 lamented the situation that some fellow writers such as Sergio Ramírez (Nicaragua) are going through.
«There is repression for writers and journalists, especially for those who protest, and those are one of the first signs of authoritarianism. And that is achieved by silencing the voices that ask and question. I am sorry that is the case. I knew a very different Venezuela from what is now and, although it was not ideal, what is happening today in Venezuela is very sad“, he pointed.
Isabel Allende and Violet
Allende offered a virtual press conference to present purple (Plaza & Janés), her latest novel, which is published simultaneously in Spanish and English in the United States, Latin America and Spain, the story of a woman whose life spans from 1920 to 2020, between two pandemics: the misnamed “Spanish flu” and the current coronavirus.
«Perhaps the most sane thing would be for history to be taught as it should be taught, not only as told by the victor, who is usually the white man, but as told by the defeated, the silenced voices, which are the ones that must be attracted to history texts. But you can’t always eliminate those symbols that remind us of that past, but rather review that past,” Allende said.
In this sense, the writer, who is about to turn 80, has made reference to the “controversy” that exists in her native Chile over the revelation of a rape told by Pablo Neruda in I confess that I have lived.
«Neruda confesses that he raped a woman and Chilean feminists want to eliminate Neruda, and one thing is the failed man, that we are all failed, and another the work. If in the case of an artist like Neruda we are going to keep what he did, let’s review his private life, but let’s not eliminate everything, because otherwise no puppet will be left with a head. Let’s not eliminate the story, we are going to review it so that it is told as it should be told,” he said.
Likewise, Allende affirmed that the human being has evolved “very little” because he continues to have “the same primitive instincts” as 100 years ago.
Violeta, the new novel by Isabel Allende, will be published simultaneously worldwide in English and Spanish by Penguin Random House (Ballantine and Plaza & Janés) on January 25, 2022.
A novel that starts with the Spanish Flu of 1920 and ends with the 2020 pandemic. pic.twitter.com/k6ZJbGDheD— David Trias (@DavidTrias) June 18, 2021
The protagonist
Its protagonist, Violeta del Valle, is marked from birth by extraordinary events, some of which are historical and will profoundly influence her life.
“I have been accused of writing with an epic breath, but the truth is that my life has been brutally influenced by external circumstances that I have not been able to control, such as politics,” Allende said. Therefore, you cannot write a novel detached from the context in which the characters move.
And although he would love to write romance novels, he stated that it is a genre that he is not given to, because the characters live off their passions in a kind of bubble where the outside world does not appear at all: «The French Revolution may be falling and these people they continue to love, hate or be jealous of each other, as if the revolution did not exist».
The dictatorships of Chile and Argentina also pass through her novel, as well as the impunity that existed for many and that exists in many countries: “In Spain too,” said the writer, who assured that “people are left with an open wound when there is impunity and there is at this moment in all of Latin America.
“There have been genocides in Central America, massacres of indigenous people, they have destroyed entire villages, they have burned people alive and nobody pays for that, but they get rich from it,” he denounced.
Letter to a grandson
Violeta, who recounts her life through a long letter addressed to her grandson, is a passionate woman and has several sentimental relationships throughout her life: «how can I not believe in love in maturity, at any age? What if I just got married? “Isabel Allende wondered.
Violeta also has a daughter, Nieves, inspired by a stepdaughter of Isabel Allende, the only daughter of her second husband, who died very young, shortly after giving birth.
“I use family, friends, acquaintances, everyone,” confesses Allende, who already has another novel in the process of being translated that will come out next year, this time a fictional story about refugees.
Apart from what last January 8, as is tradition every year, he began to write: «This year I fulfilled it but with the promotion of Violeta I cannot dedicate myself, but I continue investigating and when I finish with this one I will be able to concentrate on that. I’m always entertained,” Allende guarantees.