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| My Invented Country: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Isabel Allende
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (12 reviews)
Sales Rank: 90418
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060545674
Dewey Decimal Number: 863.64
EAN: 9780060545673
ASIN: 0060545674
Publication Date: 2004
Release Date: April 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country; a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth, and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today. The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on her adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth an overdue acknowledgment that Allende had indeed left home. My Invented Country, mimicking the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance between past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants and to all of us who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Great Beach Read July 28, 2008
The most enjoyable thing about this book is the tone. So light, so airy, so droll. Wading my way daily through so many heavy tomes as I so often do, it was fun to take this book to the local lake and read it in an afternoon. I was engrossed in it, carried away by it. . . in short, I was entertained.
Ms. Allende warns us in the title through the use of the word "invented" that she is making it up. And piecing it together. Which is what we all do with our memories, especially those of home. I did not expect, nor did I look for specificities,or even accuracies, but rather for those sorts of poetic licenses that we permit ourselves when thinking of the past.
Escapist reading and fun.
 Lovely March 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you have not read a book by Isabel Allende, you probably should not start with this one. It reads like a work of fiction (and an excellently crafted one, at that). Allende herself admits that she remembers things that cannot possibly have happened, and she includes these memories in her memoirs. She also uses the same texture and meandering style that she uses in her novels. She alludes to many of her works of fiction, so it is better to have read at least a few of her books before you start with this one. This is Allende's second memoir. The first deals with her life as a mother and is infinitely more emotional and intimate. This one is about her life as an immigrant and exile. It is less heartbreaking but still poignant, especially considering the discussions about immigration in the news now.
A Memoir of Chili April 5, 2007
Allende shares her family and a bit of her own life in this book about Chili as a nation. Your opinion about Latin America may be different after you read this book.
A Captivating Landscape. January 10, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Isabel Allende's "My Invented Country" does not pick-up where her previous memoir "Paula" left off, instead it expands on some of the biographical details from the previous book and is more of a deep, dreamy memoir of her native country of Chile. In fascinating, poetic detail Allende describes a land rich in culture, heritage, history and passion. There are vivid descriptions of the beautiful Andes and the native indian cultures who populated the region before the Spanish conquest and those who populate it still. And yet it doesn't feel like a travelogue, "My Invented Country" is probably the best book to read about Chile because it is about Chile as a nation and not a chunk of land, it is the strip of country Pablo Neruda immortalized in his poetry. As in "Paula" Allende here shares more about the wild, romantic history of her family and their peculiar history. There are hilarious moments and sweet ones where she recounts her relationship with her grandfather through the years of her youth and adulthood. The politics of Chile are also widely discussed, which is pleasantly expected considering the author's uncle was Salvador Allende, Latin America's first elected socialist president who was tragically overthrown by a fascist CIA-backed coup lead by the general Augusto Pinochet who established a junta over the country. Allende describes a time when there was hope for change in Chile, when Allende won the presidency and even Fidel Castro visited the country for 27 days. With frightening detail she also describes the dark days of the military dictatorship when radical right-wing laws were passed, thousands disappeared and others brutally tortured and killed. As always Allende writes here with beautiful expressions, funny anecdotes and a sense of humour when it comes to attacking hypocrites and contradictions in her own opinions. "My Invented Country" is a pleasant memoir to read, it is a trip down the memory palace of Isabel Allende, and a journey through a country we know so little about in the United States. Those who term Latin America as "backward" should read Allende's book, it might change their opinion.
'A Slow Dance in a Large Circle' November 16, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Isabel Allende is a captivating writer, one who can spin tales of intrigue and magical mystery as well as any of our Latin American writers. Though this version of MY INVENTED COUNTRY is the paperback edition of the hardcover MY INVENTED COUNTRY: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile - the one this reader found on the 'sale book' counter in the local bookstore! - hopefully the writing is the same despite the change in title.
There is much that could be said about Allende's writing style: she moves from colloquial, humorous conversation and sharing to a manner of relating history in the form of the best historian writers. And it all works. Throughout the book Allende warmly describes just what makes Chile and its people unique and the information is not only fascinating but warmly charming. And then she very astutely takes us by the hand and for the last third of the book shares with us the political history of Chile over the last 200 years. Of course she is intimate with the Allende years, being part of that family that was forced into exile with the toppled government, but she does not present an acrid, angry stance but rather an optimistic view of the peoples' ability to change from Christian Democracy to dictatorship under Pinochet. For the first time this reader came away with the feeling that the entire process is understandable.
Allende never forgets that she has been a stranger in different countries all her life, that the Chile she knows is as much a part of nostalgia as it is fact. This book was written from her home in San Francisco and she shares with us the following insight: 'But that is how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion.' This is a warm insight into the mind of one of our important writers of the day. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, November 06
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