The Paris Review

“See, I haven’t led a literary life. These fellows, they really work away with their prose trying to describe themselves and understand themselves, and so on. I don’t do that. I don’t want to know too much about myself.” —Robert Frost, the Art of Poetry No. 2

“We live in a society that is in transition from oral to written. There are oral stories that are still there, not exactly in their full magnificence, but still strong in their differentness from written stories. Each mode has its ways and methods and rules. They can reinforce each other; this is the advantage my generation has—we can bring to the written story something of that energy of the story told by word of mouth. This is really one of the contributions our literature has made to contemporary literature.” —Chinua Achebe, the Art of Fiction No. 139

On January 8, 1981, Isabel Allende wrote a letter to her dying grandfather that later turned into her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Ever since, this has been the date on which Allende starts a new work. Having started, she writes from Monday through Saturday, from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. We wish her happy writing and hope to profit by her industrious example.