Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is a contemporary feminist Chilean author. After her father's cousin was stripped of power in a coup, she was forced to flee her homeland for Venezuela. She then ended up in California, Marin County to be exact, where she now lives.

She penned La Casa de Los Espíritus and Eva Luna, a novel and collection of short stories, respectively. This flip-flop is evident throughout Allende's career. Her work also touches on topics such as racism, drug use, and violence. She is another artist whose work is riddled with magical realism, a blending of reality and fantasy. In her novels, she explores many South American political themes. 

Her daughter, Paula, is a particularly influential figure in her life who motivates her to advocate for women's and children's rights. In 1994, two years after her daughter died of a disease, Allende wrote an expansive letter to her daughter, which she transformed into a book. In her daughter's honor, Allende also created a foundation propping up the aforementioned causes. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010.