Voices from the edge: Marginalization in the narrative fiction of Isabel Allende (Chile, Venezuela)

The narrative fiction of Isabel Allende stands today as a watermark for the development of a poetics of the Post-Boom generation in Latin American literature. As she integrates and edits history in her novels she deals with themes that are at once specific to Latin America and present in a universal context. My study traces Allende's interpretation of history from Chile to Venezuela and discusses the causes and effects of political exile as they relate to historical and social conditions within these histories. I also examine Allende's use of parody, stylization and other textual manipulations as she makes a place for her fiction in the growing world of Hispanic letters. Finally, Allende leads me to a discussion of her literature in the context of feminism and the postmodern condition. All of this points to the underlying theme of Allende's work: the call for reconciliation. Politically motivated literature has often seen the world from a confrontational perspective. Allende alters this point of view, choosing to end her works with the hope of a brighter, united tomorrow. This openly romanticized view of the world causes some to criticize Allende's fiction because it is not "real" enough. Indeed, the reality of Latin America has not been historically full of hope, but Allende attempts to alter this reality through her treatment of the topics discussed above, by so doing she reveals that Latin American literature need not be gloomy even as it expresses the reality of the Hispanic condition.