Miami (AFP)

For Isabel Allende, a successful Chilean author, the current pandemic has highlighted glaring inequalities, which are now fueling daily demonstrations in the United States and around the world.

The 77-year-old writer, known for her novel "La Maison aux esprits" and her rigorous tradition of starting a new work every year on January 8, believes that it will be up to the younger generations to build the world based on on racial and gender equality.

Extracts from an interview granted to AFP by videoconference, from San Francisco, where she lives.

Answer: "From the pandemic will emerge a wave, an avalanche, new interpretations of our reality, not only in the arts, but philosophy, history, everything. (...) But as far as I am concerned, i need a little time and distance to see more clearly.

I could have written 'The Spirit House' right after the Chilean military coup in 1973. It took me over eight years to write it, because I needed to digest what it s had passed. And I think I'm going to do the same with what's going on right now. "

A: "It teaches us to study our priorities and confronts us with our reality. Inequality is reality: how some spend confinement on a yacht in the Caribbean, and others on an empty stomach.

It also teaches us that we are a big family. What happens to a human being in Wuhan happens to the whole planet, to all of us. (...) There is no wall, there is no wall that can separate people.

Creative people, artists, scientists, young people and many women, all think about what the next world will look like. They don't want to go back to the old world. This is the most important issue of our time: the dream of a different world. We need to access it. "

A: "That would be the end of patriarchy. The bullies who rule the world would be exhausted. A world in which men and women equally share the governance of the world.

Let us not let the world be guided by violence and greed, but rather by solidarity, compassion, hope. It's the world we want.

The young generations will inherit a world that we have destroyed in a thousand pieces. They are the ones who must save the planet, if it can be saved. I hope they have a positive solution. "

A: "The demonstrations demand racial justice, which is directly linked to the problem of poverty.

Who are the poorest people in this country? Who are those with the least medical coverage, the least jobs, who suffer the most from police violence, who are most often imprisoned? African Americans.

I think these demonstrations will start to erupt everywhere. There is a major global economic crisis. And it will cause new job losses, poverty, and therefore more violence.

There will be new demonstrations, huge demonstrations.

These problems cannot be solved with bullets or tear gas. Only by tackling the roots of the problems. These are deep problems that go back to the time of slavery. "

© 2020 AFP