Chilean born author Isabel Allende is one of 19 people named by President Barack Obama to receive the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is presented to "individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors" as stated in the White House Press Release (read full article here.)
This year's recipients will be celebrated at the White House today, November 24th. (To read more about the award and this year's recipients, click here)
Read more about Isabel Allende in her autobiographies:
My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile (2003): The author explores the landscapes and people of her native country; recounts the 1973 assassination of her uncle, which caused her to go into exile; and shares her experiences as an immigrant in post-September 11 America.
The Sum of Our Days (2008): A narrative memoir of the author's life in the wake of her daughter's tragic death describes the idiosyncratic network of friends she has gathered around herself and the realizations she has formed about such topics as love, parenthood, and addiction.
Novels by Ms. Allende available at the library include:
Daughter of Fortune (Fiction, 1999): Raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, after being abandoned as a baby, a pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California at the height of the Gold Rush and finds adventure and adversity on her road to independence and love. (An Oprah's Book Club Selection.)
Portrait in Sepia (Historical Fiction, 2001): Lacking all memory of the first five years of her life because of a brutal trauma, Aurora del Valle is raised by her regal grandmother Paulina and eventually seeks to confront the mystery of her past.
Zorro (Historical Fiction, 2005): Diego de la Vega, the son of an aristocratic Spanish landowner and a Shoshone mother, returns to California from school in Spain to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for the weak and helpless.
Island Beneath the Sea (Historical Fiction, 2010): In a novel where the setting moves from the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, an African slave and concubine is determined to claim her own destiny against impossible odds.
Maya's Notebook (Coming-of-age Fiction, 2013): Maya, a teenage girl neglected by her parents, falls into a life of drugs and crime, and must escape before it's too late.
Ripper (Mystery, 2014): A fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco through Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world.
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