Isabel Allende
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Q. How did you get your love for literature?
A. From fairy tales, stories by the Brothers Grimm and everything that I got my hands on, including the great Russian authors.
Q. Do you have a book that you’ve loved your entire life?
A. My step-father gave me the complete works of Shakespeare in an edition published by Aguilar translated into Spanish on gold-edged Bible paper. It’s a book that’s gone with me on all my exiles.
Q. Anything more recent?
A. La carretera (The Road) by Cormac McCarthy. Brutal. The harshest thing he has written, without a single ray of light.
Q. When do you do your reading?
A. Never while I’m writing. I leave it for trips, airports and now in the San Juan Islands, near Seattle (Washington). I spend my vacations reading all day long.
Q. Is there a way to instill reading in the Twitter generation?
A. I have three grandchildren and I have read them the same stories and (given) the same books to them (that I read). Andrea reads everything, including the telephone book. Alejandro just reads science fiction. And Nicole reads package labels.