Feminism according to Isabel Allende: "You have to make noise, you have to challenge, you have to rise up"

• 'Long petal of the sea' "What happens to emigrants in the US is a crime"

• Actualidad.All the literature news in THE WORLD

Scream and reflection.

Isabel Allende recounts her life in her latest book to tell the story of many other women.

He uses various examples to cry out against male power in the world.

(Plaza & Janés) is an open defense of feminism, of love relationships in the elderly, of "defying, disobeying and breaking the rules" to achieve equality. As the first button of a new way of understanding society,

.. with 77 years

.

"There is a kind of prejudice against old age. It starts from the premise that older people have no place in society because they are no longer productive, and that which perhaps was the case a few years ago has ceased to be so, because people He lives 30 years longer than his parents and those years can be contributory to society in good health, like I. There are many who are in it.

.

It is being accepted more and more.

And I hope to contribute to that because in my last three novels couples are old, some are in their 60s and others in their 80s. And this book defends this position.

My life is an example that you can believe in love at any age ". And of" making love with laughter ":" Why make so much effort?

With a bit of humor ... ". The Chilean writer, in the book says, is flirtatious, and not a little:" I am very vain, very much.

I fix for myself.

I do a lot of things for myself and fixing myself is one of them.

I'm locked up at home, in an attic, all day now with the pandemic, and I'm the same, all made up.

Nobody sees it or appreciates it, only me, because my husband does not care, I could walk in pajamas, "he told EL MUNDO yesterday in an interview via Zoom. Isabel Allende, it is read in the book,

: "Yes. You know that in California it is legal. I can't smoke because I don't know how to smoke, but I buy some balls, which are like chocolates, and with a chocolate I'm ready."

In the book the figure of

, the literary agent par excellence.

Relates in

not only her financial support for the writers but her moral support: "She was a madrassa. She represented most of the Boom writers, in a way.

Also, because she managed to turn this into a movement and in my case I wouldn't be talking to you today if it weren't for her.

Because nobody wanted to read 'The House of the Spirits' [his first novel].

She not only read it, but she called me in Venezuela and said: 'I'm going to get this book published for you, but I tell you that anyone can write a good first book.

The writer is tested in the second and the following.

So don't quit your job until you prove to me that you can write. '

It always helped me.

And he told me:

But she was much more than a friend.

She was sentimental, weeping, generous to the point of exaggeration. "In the book at hand it is said that in a meeting with Carmen Balcells in Barcelona, ​​Isabel Allende came to a dinner" dressed as a hippy.

It was completely out of place, but she reassured me with a phrase: 'Here nobody knows more than you, we all improvise' (...)

Then Isabel Allende was 40 years old and the book that catapulted her was written "in the kitchen", with children and working.

"I wrote it at night because I worked at school two shifts, from seven to one for Primary and from one to seven at night for Secondary in the same place. I would come home, we would eat, I would take a shower and after washing I locked myself in the kitchen to write dishes so that I wouldn't hear television and that no one would bother me. "There is an even more relevant person in the life of Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (Lima, 1942),

and my younger brother was not born, he was born a few days later.

That was in Lima, in Peru.

And my mother returned to her parents' house in Chile.

My mother was a young, beautiful girl, unprepared for work, with a young lady's education and with three children.

Without the help of her father she could not have gotten ahead. "This undoubtedly marked her.

.

"Activist Mona Eltahawy, who begins all her lectures with her mission statement 'Fuck the patriarchy! Says we must defy, disobey and break the rules. There is no other way."

Must it be so, is there no other way?

"My mother used to tell me 'if everything can be done with elegance and without noise'. Imagine! Feminism, without noise, would not have gotten anywhere!

.

Feminism is an uprising against patriarchy, against male authority. "This petite and courageous woman has survived two divorces, lost a daughter, three stepchildren to drugs, to a dictatorship, she has lived in Peru, Venezuela, now in United States ... Without that life ... "Without the military coup in Chile I would not possibly be a writer, I would have stayed in Chile and had a life as a journalist, and I would have been very happy to be one because I loved journalism;

but he would not have had the need to write.

All that I tried to recover there.

I never thought that writing was going to be my path, partly because there were no role models to emulate.

The Boom was male, there were no women.

There were a single foreign women who had committed suicide, so the model was not easy to follow.

Maybe she would be a writer, but different. "And the loss of her daughter, Paula. She passed away at the age of 28 in 1992, just a year after it was known she had a rare disease, porphyria. The drama turned it into a book, 'Paula '. "Life is a road full of crossroads, curves, you do not see what lies ahead.

If we had a straight path, how boring life would be.

I have been lucky to have the resources to create a foundation.

I need a certain amount of money to survive decently, to have paid for the old age of my parents, the education of my children and my grandchildren.

After that, what else.

Why do you need a big house if my idea was to live alone with a dog.

I have been fortunate to have the resources to overcome Paula's trauma.

Not to overcome it, but to transform it, to turn its death into something.

It has been around for 20 years now and has been able to reach many people.

I don't know how many people it will have reached, but we have about a hundred programs that we have been maintaining for years, imagine.

It is a drop of water in a desert but Lori Ibarra [her daughter-in-law, who is the one who really takes care of the foundation,

isabelallende.org

] reminds me that behind there are people and not abstract numbers ".

[you can read or listen to the first chapter here

] "Psychological torture and emotional abuse" are also pointed out, less evident than the physical and, also more widespread than we think?

"That toxic masculinity that is machismo is feeling superior and treating women badly. I have even seen it in those men who call themselves chivalrous, who are the ones who take your chair away, the ones who open the door, those who They consider themselves so gallant. Sometimes they are the most abusive, the ones who respect you the least. You see that in offices: women are silenced, silenced.

.

Although there is no sexual harassment itself, there is contempt and disrespect, this is very hurtful.

It begins by creating awareness, by putting it in the public discourse, making it part of the narrative, not talking about gender violence, talking about a war against women, which is what it is. "Economic independence considers it Isabel Allende fundamental. "I saw that with my mother.

My grandfather used to say 'Who pays, rules'.

My mother was not qualified to work because she had to take care of three babies almost.

He depended on his father and his older brother.

I was able to do it very early because I decided to support myself and that is why I started working when I was 17 years old.

Without that, I couldn't have gotten a divorce, or any of the things I've done in life.

That is why my foundation wants to empower women.

First protection, do not live in fear;

then education, to be able to work, that you have a trade;

and then that you have control over your life, which begins with the control of the body, over its fertility. "Hence, in the book I wrote:

and to be available to every young woman from the moment she begins to menstruate (...) It is necessary to decriminalize abortion, that is, not to punish it.

That is different from legalizing it. "" The woman must have the option of an abortion in a safe way, that does not endanger her life, "Isabel Allende adds out loud. Allende regrets in her book that she repents of the sins she did not commit For "prudence, insecurity, haste ... I have been very disciplined and I have missed many occasions to have fun, a vacation, to have a love like this in passing, it does not matter if I am alone ...". she got married last year. "What did she have to lose?

If it didn't work, what was he going to lose.

People are afraid of risk, of having a bad time, of suffering.

Well, if you don't want to suffer, nothing is going to happen to you in life, you stay in a kind of limbo.

.Social networks.

Isabel Allende writes: "Harassment and intimidation occur in the home, the street, the workplace and in

And he adds that when women are together there is joy.

"Women are, thanks to the media, more united than ever. Feminism has reached everywhere, even in Nigerian villages it has been heard. It was not the case before. Furthermore, now there are many more women with resources, older Above all, and with free time that they have spread all this and are helping. Now philanthropy is no longer a male privilege. When women do philanthropy they invest it in other women. In this movement numbers matter, that women reach the management of the world. And for that we need to be millions and millions. "

To continue reading for free

Sign inSign up

Or

and you will have access to all the web content of El Mundo

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more