Author Guide · Literary Fiction
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On 8 January 1981, in exile in Caracas, Isabel Allende began a letter to her grandfather, who was dying in Chile. The letter became The House of the Spirits, turned down by several Spanish-language publishers before Plaza & Janés brought it out in Barcelona in 1982, and 8 January became the day she starts her books. Born in Lima in 1942, the daughter of a Chilean diplomat whose first cousin was President Salvador Allende, she left Chile after the 1973 coup and has lived in California since 1989. Her books have been translated into more than 42 languages and have sold more than 77 million copies. This guide covers her 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1982–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Isabel Allende’s best-known books are The House of the Spirits (1982), Of Love and Shadows (1984), Eva Luna (1987), the memoir Paula (1994) and Daughter of Fortune (1999). Start with The House of the Spirits: her first novel, the story of the Trueba family, and the root of the del Valle family that runs through several of her later books.
Where to Start with Isabel Allende
If you want her defining novel
→ The House of the Spirits (1982) — four generations of one family, up to the 1973 coup.
If you want a historical adventure
→ Portrait in Sepia (2000) — from Valparaíso to the California gold rush.
If you want her non-fiction
→ Daughter of Fortune (1999) — the memoir written for her daughter.
If you want a recent novel
→ A Long Petal of the Sea (2019) — Spanish Civil War refugees on Neruda’s ship to Chile.
13 Isabel Allende Books, in Order
The House of the Spirits
La casa de los espíritus follows four generations of the Trueba family in an unnamed Chile: the clairvoyant Clara del Valle, her husband Esteban Trueba, who builds the Tres Marías estate by force, their daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba, who is imprisoned and tortured after a military coup. Alba tells the story from Clara’s notebooks. Magda Bogin’s English translation appeared in 1985; Bille August filmed it in 1993 with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, and Prime Video released an eight-part Spanish-language series in April 2026.
Of Love and Shadows
De amor y de sombra: in Chile under military rule, Irene, a magazine journalist, works with Francisco, a photographer who sympathises with the underground resistance. Their reporting leads them to the state’s crimes, and they fall in love while risking their lives to expose them. It was filmed in 1994 with Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly.
Eva Luna
The life of Eva Luna, an orphan born in a South American country who survives as a servant and a street child by telling stories, and who ends up writing for television. Her story runs alongside that of Rolf Carlé, an Austrian-born photographer, until the two meet. She followed it with The Stories of Eva Luna (1989).
Paula
In 1991 Allende’s daughter Paula, who had porphyria, fell into a coma after a medication error and was left with severe brain damage. Allende began writing her family’s history for Paula at her bedside; Paula died in California on 6 December 1992, aged 29. The book is both a memoir of Allende’s own life and an account of that year. She continued it in The Sum of Our Days (2007).
Daughter of Fortune
Hija de la fortuna: Eliza Sommers, raised by an English family in 1840s Valparaíso, follows her lover Joaquín Andieta to the California gold rush. She crosses with the help of Tao Chi’en, a Chinese physician, and survives in San Francisco disguised as a boy. Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club in February 2000.
Portrait in Sepia
Retrato en sepia follows Aurora del Valle, Eliza Sommers’s granddaughter, from San Francisco to Chile in the late nineteenth century, where she becomes a photographer and tries to recover a childhood she cannot remember. It links Daughter of Fortune to the del Valle family of The House of the Spirits.
Inés of My Soul
Inés del alma mía is the life of Inés Suárez, a Spanish seamstress who sailed to the New World in the sixteenth century and joined Pedro de Valdivia’s expedition to conquer Chile, told in her own voice in old age. It covers the founding of Santiago and the war with the Mapuche.
Island Beneath the Sea
La isla bajo el mar follows Zarité, known as Tété, an enslaved woman on a sugar plantation in French Saint-Domingue, through the slave revolt that became the Haitian Revolution and on to New Orleans.
The Japanese Lover
El amante japonés: in a retirement home near San Francisco, Irina, a young Moldovan care worker, gets to know the elderly Alma Belasco and the secret of her life, a long love affair with Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family’s Japanese gardener, whose family was sent to an internment camp during the Second World War.
A Long Petal of the Sea
Largo pétalo de mar follows Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in the Spanish Civil War, and Roser Bruguera, a pianist pregnant by his dead brother. Refugees in France, they marry for practical reasons and sail to Chile in 1939 on the Winnipeg, the ship Pablo Neruda chartered for more than 2,000 Spanish exiles. The story covers nearly sixty years; the title comes from a Neruda poem about Chile.
Violeta
Violeta del Solar, a hundred years old, writes her life as a letter to her grandson. Born during the 1920 flu pandemic and dying in the Covid pandemic of 2020, she lives through her family’s ruin in the Depression, a violent love affair and the 1973 coup in a country that is recognisably Chile.
The Wind Knows My Name
El viento conoce mi nombre links three children separated from their families: Samuel Adler, sent from Vienna to England on a Kindertransport after Kristallnacht in 1938; Leticia, whose family is destroyed in El Salvador in 1981; and Anita Díaz, a seven-year-old separated from her mother at the US–Mexico border in 2019. A social worker and a lawyer take up Anita’s case.
My Name Is Emilia del Valle
Mi nombre es Emilia del Valle opens in San Francisco in 1873. Emilia, the daughter of an Irish former novice abandoned by a wealthy Chilean, writes dime novels under a man’s name, becomes a journalist and is sent to cover the Chilean civil war, where she meets her dying father. The English translation, by Frances Riddle, came out in May 2025.
In What Order to Read Isabel Allende
Most of her novels stand alone, but several share a family. Daughter of Fortune (1999) and Portrait in Sepia (2000) form a pair, and Portrait in Sepia brings in the del Valle family who appear in The House of the Spirits; My Name Is Emilia del Valle (2025) belongs to the same family. Read in story order, that is Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, then The House of the Spirits, although she wrote the last one first.
Eva Luna is followed by The Stories of Eva Luna (1989), the tales Eva tells. Paula and The Sum of Our Days are a two-part memoir, best read in that order. Her young-adult trilogy, beginning with City of the Beasts (2002), is a separate series.
A reading path
1. The House of the Spirits (1982)
2. Paula (1994)
3. Daughter of Fortune (1999)
4. A Long Petal of the Sea (2019)
5. Violeta (2022)
Everything Else Isabel Allende Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 13 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels and stories
6
6 books · 1989–2017
- 1989The Stories of Eva LunaCuentos de Eva Luna, the stories Eva tells
- 1991The Infinite PlanEl plan infinito, set in California
- 2005ZorroEl Zorro: comienza la leyenda, the hero’s origin story
- 2011Maya’s NotebookEl cuaderno de Maya
- 2014RipperEl juego de Ripper, a crime novel
- 2017In the Midst of WinterMás allá del invierno
Young-adult trilogy
3
3 books · 2002–2004
- 2002City of the BeastsLa ciudad de las bestias, set in the Amazon
- 2003Kingdom of the Golden DragonEl reino del dragón de oro
- 2004Forest of the PygmiesEl bosque de los pigmeos
Memoirs and non-fiction
4
4 books · 1997–2020
- 1997Aphrodite: A Memoir of the SensesAfrodita, on food and desire
- 2003My Invented CountryMi país inventado, on Chile and exile
- 2007The Sum of Our DaysLa suma de los días, the sequel to Paula
- 2020The Soul of a WomanMujeres del alma mía, on feminism
The years · 1942–2026
Quick facts about Isabel Allende
- Known for
- Isabel Allende is known for multigenerational family novels rooted in Chile’s history, beginning with The House of the Spirits (1982), which made her one of the most widely read Spanish-language writers in the world.
- 1942
- Born in Lima, Peru
- 1975
- Leaves Chile for Venezuela
- 1994
- Paula
- 2014
- Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 2026
- Prime Video series of her first novel
- Born
- 2 August 1942, Lima, Peru; her father, a Chilean diplomat, was a first cousin of Salvador Allende
- Exile
- Left Chile after the 1973 coup; lived in Venezuela for 13 years
- Lives
- California since 1989; US citizen since 1993
- Honours
- Chilean National Prize for Literature (2010); Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014)
- Readership
- Translated into more than 42 languages; more than 77 million copies sold
- Foundation
- Isabel Allende Foundation, set up in 1996 in her daughter Paula’s name, for women’s and children’s rights
The red mark is 1982: The House of the Spirits, her first novel, begun as a letter to her dying grandfather.
How Isabel Allende Writes: Families, History and Women
Allende’s novels are built around families followed over decades, often generations, with national history passing through their houses: the Trueba family and the 1973 coup, Violeta’s hundred years of Chile, the del Valles from the gold rush to the 1891 civil war. She often frames a book as a written record left for someone else — Alba’s use of Clara’s notebooks, Violeta’s letter to her grandson, Paula written for her daughter.
Her early books, especially The House of the Spirits, mix the supernatural into everyday family life, which led to frequent comparisons with Gabriel García Márquez; she has said One Hundred Years of Solitude influenced her as it did almost every writer of her generation. From Daughter of Fortune on, she moved towards researched historical fiction: the conquest of Chile, the Haitian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War and the Winnipeg.
Her central characters are usually women who make their own way against the rules of their time: a conquistador, an enslaved woman, a journalist writing under a man’s name. Exile and displacement recur, from Chilean refugees to children separated at the US border, as they did in her own life.
Watch
Isabel Allende in Conversation with Rita Braver
Rita Braver of CBS Sunday Morning talks with Isabel Allende about her writing career and how her upbringing shaped her novels, in an extended interview posted in October 2023. From the official CBS Sunday Morning channel.
Frequently asked questions about Isabel Allende’s books
How many books has Isabel Allende written?
About 27 under her name, around twenty of them novels. This page lists 13 key books, from The House of the Spirits (1982) to My Name Is Emilia del Valle (2025), and 14 more: novels and stories, a young-adult trilogy and memoirs.
What are Isabel Allende’s books in order?
The key books are The House of the Spirits (1982), Of Love and Shadows (1984), Eva Luna (1987), Paula (1994), Daughter of Fortune (1999), Portrait in Sepia (2000), Inés of My Soul (2006), Island Beneath the Sea (2009), The Japanese Lover (2015), A Long Petal of the Sea (2019), Violeta (2022), The Wind Knows My Name (2023) and My Name Is Emilia del Valle (2025). Years are the first Spanish editions.
Where should I start with Isabel Allende?
With The House of the Spirits, her first novel, which introduces the del Valle and Trueba families and the political history that runs through her work. If you prefer historical adventure, start with Daughter of Fortune.
What is Isabel Allende’s most famous book?
The House of the Spirits (1982). It became a bestseller on publication in Barcelona, was filmed in 1993 with Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas, and was adapted as a Spanish-language Prime Video series in 2026.
Do Isabel Allende’s books need to be read in order?
Mostly not. Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia are linked, and Portrait in Sepia connects to the del Valle family of The House of the Spirits; Paula comes before The Sum of Our Days; and City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies form a trilogy.
Which Isabel Allende books have been adapted?
The House of the Spirits as a 1993 film directed by Bille August and as an eight-part Prime Video series in 2026, on which Allende was an executive producer; and Of Love and Shadows as a 1994 film with Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly. A stage version of The House of the Spirits opened in Seattle in 2007.
Is Isabel Allende related to Salvador Allende?
Yes. Her father, the diplomat Tomás Allende, was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 until the coup of 1973. She left Chile for Venezuela afterwards.
Why do some critics dislike Isabel Allende?
Her popularity has divided Chilean and Latin American writers. Roberto Bolaño called her writing “anemic” and her “a writing machine, not a writer”, and her 2010 Chilean National Prize for Literature was widely described as controversial. Allende has answered that treating bestselling writers as unserious is an insult to their readers.
What prizes has Isabel Allende won?
Among others, Chile’s National Prize for Literature (2010), the US Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014) and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (2018). Daughter of Fortune was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 2000.
Is Isabel Allende still alive?
Yes. She was born on 2 August 1942 in Lima, Peru, and lives in California. Her most recent novel, My Name Is Emilia del Valle, was published in 2025.
Footnotes
- Isabel Allende — Wikipedia
- The House of the Spirits — Wikipedia
- Wandering spirits — isabelallende.com
- Spirit guides: The House of the Spirits series — Drama Quarterly
- My Name Is Emilia del Valle — Kirkus Reviews
- In memoir, Allende reveals life to late daughter — NPR, 2008
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“You need a weird family to be a writer.”
— Isabel Allende, interview with NPR on The Sum of Our Days (2008)
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