The Soul of a Woman

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'An autobiographical meditation on feminism, power and womanhood ... Full of Isabel's wisdom and warm words' - Grazia
'In her small, potent polemic . . . Isabel Allende writes about the toxic effects of "machismo", combining wit with anger as she picks apart the patriarchy' - Independent
'Allende has everything it takes: the ear, the eye, the mind, the heart, the all-encompassing humanity' - New York Times
An Independent, Guardian and Grazia Highlight for 2021
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The wise, warm, defiant new book from literary legend Isabel Allende - a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a woman
When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.
As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality.
So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will 'light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.'
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'Her thoughts, language and ideas traverse fluidly through ideas of gender, historic injustices, her marriages and bodily experiences and literary references . . . Allende's love for women is palpable' - Sydney Morning Herald

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her twenty-eight books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and Paula. In addition to her work as a writer, Isabel devotes much of her time to human rights causes. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs.
You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende and on X @IsabelAllende