Isabel Allende

Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean-American writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the magical realism genre, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.