By Christa Dierksheide
Cavalier Daily Life Editor
Every year, she begins a new novel on Jan. 8. Then, she lights a candle. It's part of a routine. And it's part of the art that has helped make works such as "The House of the Spirits" household titles all over the world.
Tonight at 8 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall, Isabel Allende, who was a visiting professor in the University's Spanish department in 1988, will speak about her work and a broad array of issues. The lecture, which is sponsored by the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese departments as well as several other Arts and Sciences programs, will follow with a book signing.
Professor David T. Gies, who will moderate the event, said that the lecture "will be powerful for many students in a way they might not imagine."
Gies said Allende's appeal as both a writer and author tends to "mesmerize" audiences.
"She's a very compelling author and she writes stories we can all identify with," he said.
But Allende's connection to the University is even more personal.
Allende's daughter Paula was a teaching assistant in the Spanish department beginning in 1987 while she also worked on a master's degree in psychology at the University. But in 1992, Paula succumbed to a fatal hereditary disease. Three years later, Allende published an autobiographical work on her daughter.
Allende's connection to her daughter and also to her mother, to whom she wrote daily letters for 45 years, seems to show the importance of spirituality to the Chilean author.
Gies said he looks forward to asking "what spirituality means to her, what the house of spirits really is" during their tete a tete.
Allende worked as a journalist in Latin America for several years following the assassination of her uncle, the Chilean president Salvador Allende, in 1973. Since then, she has written several best-selling novels, the most recent of which is "Portrait in Sepia," published in 2000.
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