On Isabel Allende

Allende's speech that day surprised us all. We were prepared for a glorious reading and for a certain amount of sexuality, given the nature of Eva Luna. But we were not prepared for her joyous, bawdy humor, nor for the way she courted the audience, wooed and conquered them as if they were lovers. She was serious, heartbreaking one minute, then arch, as she talked about the disappointing truth behind the Latin myth of male machismo. Her delivery deadpan, she told us that her mother edits all her manuscripts, described the agony of waiting for maternal reaction to the sex...