The life story of Isabel Allende - one of the world's favourite writers - is as exotic, passionate and inspiring as one of her novels.


Just three when her parents divorced, Isabel Allende was raised in her grandparents' home in Chile. She left school at 16; and married Miguel Frias at 19. She then juggled her work as a journalist, editor, advice columnist and television interviewer with looking after her two children.


But when her cousin the Chilean president Salvador Allende was assassinated in 1973 in Pinochet's right-wing military coup, her life changed profoundly. It was too dangerous to stay in Chile; and she, her husband, and their two children fled to Venezuela. During her impoverished exile, she started writing `The House of the Spirits'. Based on her memories of her family and the political upheaval in her native country, it became an international bestseller and everything changed again...