"The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insu..." — Isabel Allende

I was a political refugee living in Venezuela. I had a job that was twelve hours a day, no money. It was a hard time.

Every life of a character is within a context. If I write detached from a social and political background, my story looks like a soap opera where everybody is indoors, not working and living off their emotions.

I am an American citizen and it is my home now. I like the U.S.A., which is not a place too many people have liked since Bush. The U.S. has a young population, and everything can change within a year.

I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.