Isabel Allende: 'Few couples survive the death of one child, let alone three'

After years of exile, novelist Isabel Allende found sanctuary in a rock-solid marriage. Now alone for the first time in 27 years, she reflects on loneliness, her fears for South America – and why living longer means making more mistakes

For almost three decades Isabel Allende enjoyed a blessing that often eluded the characters in her books: a sense of home and enduring love. She found sanctuary in a picturesque niche of California and in the arms of an adoring American husband, William Gordon. Not a bad way to spend your autumn years after a life marked by uprooting and loss.

But as the Chilean writer curls up in an oversized hotel armchair in Los Angeles, she detonates a small bomb under the notion of happy-ever-after. “A year ago I would have said home is where my love is,” she says, in grammatically flawless, accented English. “But now that I don’t have a love I don’t know where home is.”

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