Isabel Angélica Allende Llona, known as Isabel Allende, is a renowned Chilean-American writer born on 2 August 1942. She is acclaimed for her novels that often contain aspects of magical realism, with famous works including The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus, 1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias, 2002).

Allende has been recognized as "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author". In 2004, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Her novels, often inspired by her personal experiences and historical events, pay homage to the lives of women while interweaving elements of myth and realism. She has lectured and toured across U.S. colleges to teach literature. Fluent in English, Allende has lived in California since 1989 and was granted United States citizenship in 1993.