My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile

By Isabel Allende

A highly personal memoir of exile and homeland by bestselling author Isabel Allende

In My Invented Country Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country, a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today.

The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle, Salvador Allende Gossens, on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on her adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth from Allende an overdue acknowledgment that she had indeed left home. My Invented Country, whose structure mimics the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance accrued between the author’s past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants, and to all of us, who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063049680

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende nació en Perú y se crio en Chile. Novelista, feminista y filántropa, es una de las escritoras más leídas en el mundo: ha vendido más de ochenta millones de ejemplares de sus libros en cuarenta y dos idiomas. Todos sus libros han sido aclamados por el público y la crítica, entre los que se incluyen La casa de los espíritus, Eva Luna, Paula, La isla bajo el mar, Violeta o El viento conoce mi nombre. Además de su faceta como escritora, dedica gran parte de su tiempo a la lucha por los derechos humanos. Ha recibido quince doctorados honoris causa, fue incluida en el California Hall of Fame y ha sido galardonada tanto en los PEN Literary Awards, por sus logros durante su carrera, como en los premios Anisfield-Wolf, que reconocen a aquellos libros que han contribuido a la apreciación de la diversidad y el enriquecimiento cultural. En 2014, el presidente estadounidense Barack Obama la condecoró con la Medalla Presidencial de la Libertad, la mayor distinción civil; y en 2018 la National Book Foundation le otorgó la Medalla por la contribución destacada a las letras americanas, uno de los premios literarios más prestigiosos de Estados Unidos. Actualmente vive en California con su marido y sus perros. Puedes visitar su Web IsabelAllende.com o seguirla a través de Instagram @AllendeIsabel, Facebook en Facebook.com/IsabelAllende y X (Twitter) @IsabelAllende.

Book preview

Map

Epigraph

. . . for some reason or other, I am a sad exile.

In some way or other, our land travels with me

and with me too, though far, far away, live the

longitudinal essences of my country.

—PABLO NERUDA, 1972

Dear Reader,

This book is an exercise in nostalgia. Let’s say nostalgia with a sense of humor because I don’t trust my memory. I believe what never happened, according to one of my granddaughters.

I have been a foreigner all my life. I was born in Peru, spent my childhood in Chile, and then traveled to several countries following my stepfather, who was a diplomat. After the military coup of 1973 in Chile, I went into exile and spent thirteen years in Venezuela. I have been an immigrant for over thirty years in the United States.

Where are my roots? Where do I belong? If I am asked, my spontaneous answer is that I am Chilean but in truth I have lived in Chile only a few years of my life. I live and work in English, but I write, dream, count, and make love in Spanish. My home is in California, but my strongest memories are from Chile. My husband, my son, my daughter-in-law, my grandchildren, and most of my friends are in the United States, but I am inexorably pulled back to the spectacular land of my childhood. Anyone who has been there will corroborate this: Chile is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Chile defined me. In my books I keep going back to that place that I left almost half a century ago, but when I visit it, I feel like a foreigner. One can never return to the past. I don’t quite recognize it because it has changed, I have changed, and the world has changed. It is still a country of earthquakes, tsunamis, and other catastrophes, but now it enjoys political, social, and economic stability; it is the most stable country in Latin America. Oh, but I miss its old charm and craziness!

So, my friends, this is an invitation to take my hand and let me be your guide to my invented Chile, the Chile of my incurable nostalgia.

Isabel Allende, 2020

Contents

Cover

Map

Title Page

Epigraph

Country of Longitudinal Essences

Dulce De Leche, Organ Grinders, and Gypsies

An Old Enchanted House

A Millefeuille Pastry

Sirens Scanning the Sea

Praying to God

The Landscape of Childhood

A Sober and Serious People

Of Vices and Virtues

The Roots of Nostalgia

Confused Years of Youth

Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

A Breath of History

Gunpowder and Blood

Chile in My Heart

This Country Inside My Head

Acknowledgments

Praise

Also by Isabel Allende

Copyright

About the Publisher

Country of Longitudinal Essences

LET’S BEGIN at the beginning, with Chile, that remote land that few people can locate on the map because it’s as far as you can go without falling off the planet. Why don’t we sell Chile and buy something closer to Paris? one of our intellectuals once asked. No one passes by casually, however lost he may be, although many visitors decide to stay forever, enamored of the land and the people. Chile lies at the end of all roads, a lance to the south of the south of America, four thousand three hundred kilometers of hills, valleys, lakes, and sea. This is how Neruda describes it in his impassioned poetry:

Night, snow and sand compose the form

of my slender homeland,

all silence is contained within its length,

all foam issues from its seaswept beard,

all coal fills it with mysterious kisses.

This elongated country is like an island, separated on the north from the rest of the continent by the Atacama Desert—the driest in the world, its inhabitants like to say, although that must not be true, because in springtime parts of that lunar rubble tend to be covered with a mantle of flowers, like a wondrous painting by Monet. To the east rises the cordillera of the Andes, a formidable mass of rock and eternal snows, and to the west the abrupt coastline of the Pacific Ocean. Below, to the south, lie the solitudes of Antarctica. This nation of dramatic topography and diverse climates, studded with capricious obstacles and shaken by the sighs of hundreds of volcanoes, a geological miracle between the heights of the cordillera and the depths of the sea, is unified top to tail by the obstinate sense of nationhood of its inhabitants.

We Chileans still feel our bond with the soil, like the campesinos we once were. Most of us dream of owning a piece of land, if for nothing more than to plant a few worm-eaten heads of lettuce. Our most important newspaper, El Mercurio, publishes a weekly agricultural supplement that informs the public in general of the latest insignificant pest found on the potatoes or about the best forage for improving milk production. Its readers, who are planted in asphalt and concrete, read it voraciously, even though they have never seen a live cow.

In the broadest terms, it can be said that my long and narrow homeland can be broken up into four very different regions. The country is divided into provinces with beautiful names, but the military, who may have had difficulty memorizing them, added numbers for identification purposes. I refuse to use them because a nation of poets cannot have a map dotted with numbers, like some mathematical delirium. So let’s talk about the four large regions, beginning with the norte grande, the big north that occupies a fourth of the country; inhospitable and rough, guarded by high mountains, it hides in its entrails an inexhaustible treasure of minerals.

I traveled to the north when I was a child, and I’ve never forgotten it, though a half-century has gone by since then. Later in my life I had the opportunity to cross the Atacama Desert a couple of times, and although those were extraordinary experiences, my first recollections are still the strongest. In my memory, Antofagasta, which in Quechua means town of the great salt lands, is not the modern city of today but a miserable, out-of-date port that smelled like iodine and was dotted with fishing boats, gulls, and pelicans. In the nineteenth century it rose from the desert like a mirage, thanks to the industry producing nitrates, which for several decades were one of Chile’s principal exports. Later, when synthetic nitrate was invented, the port was kept busy exporting copper, but as the nitrate companies began to close down, one after another, the pampa became strewn with ghost towns. Those two words—ghost town—gave wings to my imagination on that first trip.

I recall that my family and I, loaded with bundles, climbed onto a train that traveled at a turtle’s pace through the inclement Atacama Desert toward Bolivia. Sun, baked rocks, kilometers and kilometers of ghostly solitudes, from time to time an abandoned cemetery, ruined buildings of adobe and wood. It was a dry heat where not even flies survived. Thirst was unquenchable. We drank water by the gallon, sucked oranges, and had a hard time defending ourselves from the dust, which crept into every cranny. Our lips were so chapped they bled, our ears hurt, we were dehydrated. At night a cold hard as glass fell over us, while the moon lighted the landscape with a blue splendor. Many years later I would return to the north of Chile to visit Chuquicamata, the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, an immense amphitheater where thousands of earth-colored men, working like ants, rip the mineral from stone. The train ascended to a height of more than four thousand meters and the temperature descended to the point where water froze in our glasses. We passed the silent salt mine of Uyuni, a white sea of salt where no bird flies, and others where we saw elegant flamingos. They were brush strokes of pink among salt crystals glittering like precious stones.

The so-called norte chico, or little north, which some do not classify as an actual region, divides the dry north from the fertile central zone. Here lies the valley of Elqui, one of the spiritual centers of the Earth, said to be magical. The mysterious forces of Elqui attract pilgrims who come there to make contact with the cosmic energy of the universe, and many stay on to live in esoteric communities. Meditation, Eastern religions, gurus of various stripes, there’s something of everything in Elqui. It’s like a little corner of California. It is also from Elqui that our pisco comes, a liquor made from the muscatel grape: transparent, virtuous, and serene as the angelic force that emanates from the land. Pisco is the prime ingredient of the pisco sour, our sweet and treacherous national drink, which must be drunk with confidence, though the second glass has a kick that can floor the most valiant among us. We usurped the name of this liquor, without a moment’s hesitation, from the city of Pisco, in Peru. If any wine with bubbles can be called champagne, even though the authentic libation comes only from Champagne, France, I suppose our pisco, too, can appropriate a name from another nation. The norte chico is also home to La Silla, one of the most important observatories in the world, because the air there is so clear that no star—either dead or yet to be born—escapes the eye of its gigantic telescope. Apropos of the observatory, someone who has worked there for three decades told me that the most renowned astronomers in the world wait years for their turn to scour the universe. I commented that it must be stupendous to work with scientists whose eyes are always on infinity and who live detached from earthly miseries, but he informed me that it is just the opposite: astronomers are as petty as poets. He says they fight over jam at breakfast. The human condition never fails to amaze.

The valle central is the most prosperous area of the country, a land of grapes and apples, where industries are clustered and a third of the population lives in the capital city. Santiago was founded in 1541 by Pedro de Valdivia. After walking for months through the dry north, it seemed to him that he’d reached the Garden of Eden. In Chile everything is centralized in the capital, despite the efforts of various governments that over the span of half a century have tried to distribute power among the provinces. If it doesn’t happen in Santiago, it may as well not happen at all, although life in the rest of the country is a thousand times calmer and more pleasant.

The zona sur, the southern zone, begins at Puerto Montt, at 40 degrees latitude south, an enchanted region of forests, lakes, rivers, and volcanoes. Rain and more rain nourishes the tangled vegetation of the cool forests where our native trees rise tall, ancients of thousand-year growth now threatened by the timber industry. Moving south, the traveler crosses pampas lashed by furious winds, then the country strings out into a rosary of unpopulated islands and milky fogs, a labyrinth of fjords, islets, canals, and water on all sides. The last city on the continent is Punta Arenas, wind-bitten, harsh, and proud; a high, barren land of blizzards.

Chile owns a section of the little-explored Antarctic continent, a world of ice and solitude, of infinite white, where fables are born and men die: Chile ends at the South Pole. For a long time, no one assigned any value to Antarctica, but now we know how many mineral riches it shelters, in addition to being a paradise of marine life, so there is no country that doesn’t have an eye on it. In the summertime, a cruise ship can visit there with relative ease, but the price of such a cruise is as the price of rubies, and for the present, only rich tourists and poor but determined ecologists can make the trip.

In 1888 Chile annexed the Isla de Pascua, mysterious Easter Island, the navel of the world, or Rapanui, as it is called in the natives’ language. The island is lost in the immensity of the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles from continental Chile, more or less six hours by jet from Valparaíso or Tahiti. I am not sure why it belongs to us. In olden times, a ship captain planted a flag, and a slice of the planet became legally yours, regardless of whether that pleased its inhabitants, in this case peaceful Polynesians. This was the practice of European nations, and Chile could not lag behind. For the islanders, contact with South America was fatal. In the mid-nineteenth century, most of the male population was taken off to Peru to work as slaves in the guano deposits, while Chile shrugged its shoulders at the fate of its forgotten citizens. The treatment those poor men received was so bad that it caused an international protest in Europe, and, after a long diplomatic struggle, the last fifteen survivors were returned to their families. Those few went back infected with small pox, and within a brief time the illness exterminated eighty percent of the natives on the island. The fate of the remainder was not much better. Imported sheep ate the vegetation, turning the landscape into a barren husk of lava, and the negligence of the authorities—in this case the Chilean navy—drove the inhabitants into poverty. Only in the last two decades, tourism and the interest of the world scientific community have rescued Rapanui.

Scattered across the Easter Island are monumental statues of volcanic stone, some weighing more than twenty tons. These moais have intrigued experts for centuries. To sculpt them on the slopes of the volcanoes and then drag them across rough ground, to erect them on often-inaccessible bases and place hats of red stone atop them, was the task of titans. How was it done? There are no traces of an advanced civilization that can explain such prowess. Two different groups populated the island. According to legend, one of those groups, the Arikis, had supernatural mental powers, which they used to levitate the moais and transport them, floating effortlessly, to their altars on the steep slopes. What a tragedy that this technique has been lost to the world! In 1940, the Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl built a balsa raft, which he christened Kon Tiki, and sailed from South America to Easter Island to prove that there had been contact between the Incas and the Easter Islanders.

I traveled to Easter Island in the summer of 1974, when there was only one flight a week and tourism was nearly nonexistent. Enchanted, I stayed three weeks longer than I had planned, and thus happened to be on the spot when the first television broadcast was celebrated with a visit by General Pinochet, who had led the military junta that had replaced Chile’s democracy some months earlier. The television was received with more enthusiasm than the brand-new dictator. The general’s stay was extremely colorful, but this isn’t the time to go into those details. It’s enough to say that a mischievous little cloud strategically hovered above his head every time he wanted to speak in public, leaving him wringing wet and limp as a dishrag. He had come with the idea of delivering property titles to the islanders, but no one was terribly interested in receiving them, since from the most ancient times everyone has known exactly what belongs to whom. They were afraid, and rightly so, that the only use for that piece of government paper would be to complicate their lives.

Chile also owns the island of Juan Fernández, where the Scots sailor Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, was set ashore by his captain in 1704. Selkirk lived on the island for more than four years—without a domesticated parrot or the company of a native named Friday, as portrayed in the novel—until he was rescued by another captain and returned to England, where his fate did not exactly improve. The determined tourist, after a bumpy flight in a small airplane or an interminable trip by boat, can visit the cave where the Scotsman survived by eating herbs and fish.

Being so far from everything gives us Chileans an insular mentality, and the majestic beauty of the land makes us take on airs. We believe we are the center of the world—in our view, Greenwich should have been set in Santiago—and we turn our backs on Latin America, always comparing ourselves instead to Europe. We are very self-centered: the rest of the universe exists only to consume our wines and

Reviews for My Invented Country

[lagnahutri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very Good, Maybe This Can Help You
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[FlorenciaR · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think that for being the first book I read by Isabel Allende, it wasn't bad. It's a book that talks about the author's journey through life, her experiences, and perceptions. The parallels that can be drawn with Argentina (my country) are interesting, and I see that there are many things in common. I really liked her writing style, but I found it a bit heavy at times. Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but I am sure I will read more of her work. (Translated from Spanish)

[Jess Gonzalez O · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Choosing a book by Isabel is a reliable option that never fails.

I started "My Invented Country" without reading the synopsis first, so I was expecting a new fiction novel, one of those that envelops us in pure magical realism, with particular families, love stories that challenge society, and a lot of history and politics. And although this time Isabel surprised me with an autobiography highlighting several essential moments, experiences, and lessons throughout her existence, I have realized, or rather, re-confirmed that her life itself is ✨Magical Realism✨.

Nostalgia, the key word with which this book begins, is the feeling that gives the author the freedom to immerse us in stories that intertwine her family history closely related to Chile's high politics, the culture and customs of her country (which she humorously recounts) and that, as a Colombian reader, I found many similarities with my own country. Isabel not only talks to us about politics, but also about love, family, and personal anecdotes that have been the focus of observation and inspiration for the multiple novels she has written.

She was fortunate to be born into a rather particular family, has witnessed numerous political changes in Chile, and has been a traveler – an immigrant throughout her life. These three aspects were fundamental in shaping her personality and developing her talent, turning her into an icon in the world of writers and feminism.

Reading "My Invented Country" is not just learning more about Isabel's life; it is about understanding history and politics, comprehending the actions of others, imagining the landscapes and customs of a country unknown to many, and realizing how, through observation, her empowerment, and vision, this woman has managed to become what she is today at 80 years old.

It may not be my favorite book of hers, but it is an excellent recommendation to get to know this wonderful author more closely. (Translated from Spanish)

[GustavoIGG · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is not my first approach to Isabel Allende as I have read many of her novels. On this occasion, I decided to read "My Invented Country" without knowing its plot. My surprise was that it was not a novel but rather a biographical "essay" very similar to "The Sum of Our Days," which, by the way, is my favorite book by the author. She has a talent for storytelling but even more so for telling her own story, her memories of her country, Chile, as well as describing its inhabitants and what characterizes them the most. Upon finishing, I just thought it should be included in mandatory school reading as it also teaches a bit of history and culture of this country. (Translated from Spanish)

[jayeless-698797 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When a work is beautiful even in translation, it can do nothing but inspire awe... and so with this. At only 200 pages, it's a briskly-paced outline of the Chile of Isabel Allende's imagination, full of exaggeration and lyricism, and deeply absorbing. There's reminiscing about eccentric relatives, the excitement of the short-lived Unidad Popular government, the regime of fear that was Pinochet's... another element that I found interesting was the reflections on the patriarchal nature of Chilean society. In some ways it reminded me of Simone de Beauvoir, as these reflections too were coming from the perspective of a relatively upper-class woman, except that this book is better written! Ha ha.

No seriously though, there's a lot interesting in this book, and I found it so engrossing due to the way it's written. Also, it makes me really want to travel to Chile...

[zasmine_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A story about exile and nostalgia was definitely going to attract my attention. But this one is really even more special because its written by Isabel Allende, someone who's writing I already love.
I am surprised she didnt write as much about Gabriela Mistral...

[PattyEnderica · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"In the slow exercise of writing, I have grappled with my demons and obsessions, I have explored the corners of memory, I have rescued stories and characters from oblivion, I have stolen the lives of others, and with all that raw material, I have built a place I call my homeland. That is where I am from." Isabel Allende

When we read a certain book, we establish an invisible relationship among readers in which, for an indefinite time, we share similar feelings from a distance. My invented country, one of Isabel's books, in my opinion and in the opinion of many, sees the author revealing herself very transparently, already stripped of the fear of censorship and reprisals. (Translated from Spanish)

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook narrated by Blair Brown
3.5***

In this memoir, Allende looks at her own family history as well as the history of her native country, Chile. She explores the social conventions, politics, natural terrain, geographical difficulties and advantages of this unique land. It’s a story full of mythology – from national legends, to her own family’s stories. Here are the roots of her ability to seamlessly weave elements of magical realism into her novels. Her own family history is rife with examples: a grandmother who could move furniture with her thoughts, ghosts and hauntings, and larger-than-life ancestors.

Blair Brown does a fine job of narrating this memoir. I’ve listened to her narrate a couple of Allende’s books and this is a good partnership.

[Fiura · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This 200-page book is a biography of Isabel Allende in her peculiar style. As an eternal pilgrim until she arrived in California in the 1980s, her identity is made up of nostalgia and imagination. As a Chilean, I applaud her excellent portrayal of our idiosyncrasy, and although it was written at the beginning of this millennium and we have changed quite a bit... in essence, we are the same.

"For the moment, California is my home and Chile is the territory of my nostalgia. My heart is not divided but has grown." (Translated from Spanish)

[PabloJavierCoronel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I bought this book on my trip to Chile; it helped me understand a society that seemed so distant from my own. Isabel Allende takes a journey through her life and her beloved country, managing to convey some of her affection to the reader. A book made of nostalgia that is part of the identity of a people.

Recommended for getting to know Chile. (Translated from Spanish)

[Elisabet1972 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had a great time reading a book that describes Chilean society very well. It was very entertaining. (Translated from Spanish)

[jessika.c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a (formerly) huge fan of Jane the Virgin it did not escape my awareness that Jane's favorite author was Ms Allende. The House of the Spirits was on my tbr for a million years until I decided to give it the boot because ghost stories are just not my thing. I've noticed magical realism isn't my thing in general but whatever. I still wanted to read Ms Allende's work so I picked up a memoir which happened to be this one.

Best book I read all month. Everyone has some level of pride in their culture or heritage. Allende just got the chance to write about it. With a nostalgic flare present in every page she recalls her memories of her home country of Chile. It was so detailed and charming that the country was almost added to my dream destinations (I'm also Latin American but with a North American immune system and by the description of how sick her ex-husband got when they visited the place I don't think I would fend much better).

I can't describe her writing but there's something very wordy and long yet she chooses simple images so that it doesn't feel like a chore to get through the crazy long paragraphs she writes. I imagine that's how her normal fictional books go as well but as I've stated before I doubt I'll get to one unless it's not one with magical realism.

There were some passages that I absolutely loved and shared with friends and family. I couldn't get enough of this book even if I am not Chilean myself.

[Florecilla Silvestre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this memoir, Isabel Allende paints a picture of that imaginary country that lives in her mind, where every setting and character from her novels resides, which is none other than her native Chile, her people, family, and friends. Throughout the work, Isabel describes her homeland with love, but without neglecting her loyalty and affection for the land where she has taken deep roots, California. It is a luxury to read in 164 pages about Isabel's inspiration for her novels. It is always a pleasure to read her close and warm prose, and the colorful and realistic language that characterizes Isabel Allende. (Translated from Spanish)

[siri51 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lots about Chile and the Chilean people - while I have not met anyone from Chile, when I do, I will know they are typically serious, spiritual and don't dance much. Stopped reading towards the end with the complicated political history of Chile - sorry Isabel.

[calavari · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My Invented Country is a different kind of memoir. Allende's personal memoir was Paula, but as it says in the title, this one is about Chile. Don't confuse it with a history of Chile either. This is written in a memoir style and is simply Allende's experience of her country. It's the way she remembers things and the way she remembers feeling things. There is history here, but written in a way that reminds the reader that history is experienced by those who live it.

My favorite thing about the book was Allende's tone. The book was tinged with nostalgia and it made her way of writing feel almost playful most of the time. I particularly loved when she talked about being a feminist because it was so on the nose to the way that I have felt before. My favorite was this line:

I realized that to wait to be respected for being a feminist was like expecting the bull not to charge because you’re a vegetarian.
Her experience of machismo and patriarchy in Chile was very similar to what I grew up around in Miami. Also that she shared that moment that so many of us feminists have when we learn about the history of patriarchal treatment beyond our own experiences:

When I look back at the past, I realize that my mother was dealt a difficult destiny and in fact confronted it with great bravery, but at the time I judged her as being weak because she was dependent on the men around her, like her father and her brother Pablo, who controlled the money and gave the orders.
When we look at the whole picture, no single generation could really have gotten it's gains without the generation before it which promptly takes those gains for granted while not properly appreciating what the women before them went through. Or, at least, that's how it always looks to me.

Allende talks a bit about the US interfering in Latin American politics, which was and is unacceptable and I hope we never do again except I can't escape the feeling that we could be doing it somewhere at this very moment. We may be learning from our mistakes to not interfere in these kinds of affairs of others (specifically supporting the overthrow of elected governments because we are definitely interfering in other things) but I'm not as optimistic. Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh but we, as a country, can't seem to get it together on when it is or isn't a good time. We kept out of two world wars for too long, only to be told that was a bad policy and then interfered in every conflict since then and that isn't working out for us or the other countries either. But, alas, that's not what this book is about and I apologize for the tangent.

Eventually, Allende had to leave Chile for understandable reasons, much like some of the other women I've read about who fled their own countries. I also understand what her dissenters mean when they say those who fled should have stayed and fought for the improvement of the country. I can't imagine being put into such a situation but there will always be people who do both and I imagine that will consistently breed resentment as well.

Mostly, I loved that this was a memoir about Allende's lived experience in relation to her country, whether in it or in exile. She wrote about her country as she experienced it in her youth and continues to experience it on visits back home. She wrote about her experience in exile from Chile as it relates to being Chilean. All of that just makes me love the title all the more because if I wrote about my experience in the US and what living here is like for me, there would be tons of people coming out to tell me how that's not the real US. I imagine there is at least some similarity to the way other Chileans experience this book, but everyone's experience of their country and their town is different from even the others who live in their homes. At that it all seems that no two siblings ever seem to have grown up in the same house with the same parents either. Calling it her "invented" country simply reminds us not to judge that this is just one experience of Chile.

[schmechi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Mein erfundenes Land" ist ein Buch über Chile, seine Menschen und deren Eigenheiten. Allende erzählt von persönlich Erlebten und bringt dem Leser in meist heiterer, fesselnder Form ihrem Geburtsland näher. Kaum ein Thema wird ausgespart, egal ob Geschichte, Politik, Gesellschaftliches oder die landschaftlichen Reize des Landes.

Doch das Buch ist nicht nur eine literarische Liebeserklärung an Chile, es ist vielmehr auch die Autobiographie Allendes und eines ihrer persönlichsten Werke. Die Autorin macht ihre eigene Zerissenheit zwischen ihrer chilenischen Heimat und ihrem neue Domizil USA zum Thema; sie schildert Entfremdung und Entwurzelung im Exil genauso wie Heimweh und ihre tiefe Verbundenheit mit Chile. Letztlich ist es aber auch eine Aueinandersetzung mit Allendes Familiengeschichte und ihrem Werden als Schriftstellerin.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two recent events have triggered this avalanche of memories. The first was a casual observation by my grandson Alejandro, who surprised me at the mirror scrutinizing the map of my wrinkles and said, with compassionate commiseration, "Don’t worry, Grandmother, you’re going to live at least three more years." I decided right then and there that the time had come to take another look at my life, in order to know how I wanted to live those three years that had been so generously granted.

By the time I got to the end of the introduction, I was already loving this book. Margaret Sayers Peden did a really good job, as the great writing shines through from the very first page.

Allende describes the character of Chile and its people, and the idiosyncrasies of her own family, through the eyes of an exile. Her family of eccentrics has provided material for her novels since the beginning, when The House of the Spirits began life as a letter to her dying grandfather and based on anecdotes he had told her about his family.

I grew up surrounded by secrets, mysteries, whispers, prohibitions, matters that must never be mentioned. I owe a debt of gratitude to the countless skeletons hidden in our armoire because they planted the seeds of literature in my life. In every story I write I try to exorcise one of them.

Luckily Alejandro was wrong in giving his grandmother 3 years to live, as this book was published over a decade ago, and according to a recent Ted talk, Isabel Allende continues to live a passionate life.

[gbelik_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Since Isabel Allende has spent less than half of her life (and not even the majority of her childhood) in her native country of Chile, her sense of it is created not only out of reality, but partly her imagination of her country. She is a wonderful storyteller and a fluid writer and I thoroughly enjoyed this small book.

[cailin_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love the description of Chile and it's people. Isabel Allende does an excellent job of descripting the feelings and experience of an exile. Great book - very timely with the rescue of the Chilean miners.

[alliebadger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting read. You DEFINITELY need to be in the right mood for this memoir. It's a little ramble-y at times, but Allende is such a good writer that I enjoyed being taken on her paths of memory. It also helps if you're an Allende fan and can understand how her life has influenced her writing, and thus this book.

[sr_moreno · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had hoped for an account of life in Chile prior to the military junta and her life as an exile, but was disappointed. The book is actually a fairly rambling account of her childhood, filled with strange and oddly inaccurate generalisations about Chileans. Maybe I've just misunderstood it, though.

[polutropos_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Having listened to Allende's Portrait in Sepia with some enjoyment, I picked up this memoir. "Boring" is the ultimate verdict. I felt no urge to return to it after a pause in reading. Filled with generalizations about Chile and human character, few interesting particulars about anything. Very disappointing.

[june6bug · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A slightly rambling, dryly witty reminiscence of childhood and family life in Chile--warm, funny, engaging, insightful, and delightful to read. I feel like I know some of Allende's relatives and would recognize them if I met them on the street. I can't wait to read more of her work.

[wandering_star_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

too whimsical

[riofriotex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This memoir was published seven years after Allende's first memoir, Paula. The latter is a better and more thorough memoir; but My Invented Country (subtitled A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile) still has something to say. The descriptions of Chile's landscape are thorough, but those of some of the customs and beliefs of Chileans came across a little too much as generalizations or stereotypes.

As with Paula, there is information in this book that provides background for Allende's novels and other books. I liked her distinctions between exiles and immigrants, and her discussion of memory, nostalgia, and imagination, and the parts they play in writing and life.

[stillbeing · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not too sure what to make of this one. I didn't know a thing about Chile, it's history, geography or politics before, so it was an interesting read in that sense. However, I wouldn't judge the country on a book in which the author clearly states that her recollections are quite subjective, and at times I found it all a bit sentimental and personal (which might just be a question of taste).

[piefuchs · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ratherquick read. Allende has the highly annoying habit of reducing her experience to that of all Chile. Rather than state "In my family we..." she states "in Chile..." which is simply not true. Interesting, but not great.