The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende’s first novel began as a letter to her dying 100-year-old grandfather. It follows four generations of the Trueba family through the social and political upheavals of a Latin American country that is never named but closely resembles Chile, with figures modeled on Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda. Rejected by several publishers before its 1982 publication in Barcelona, it became an instant bestseller and made Allende a literary star.