The Soul of a Woman

By: Isabel Allende

Narrated by: Gisela Chipe

Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende, read by Gisela Chipe.

The wise, warm, defiant new book from literary legend Isabel Allende - a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a woman.

An Independent, Guardian and Grazia Highlight for 2021

When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.

As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality.

So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will ‘light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished'.

©2021 Isabel Allende (P)2021 Penguin Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Allende has everything it takes: the ear, the eye, the mind, the heart, the all-encompassing humanity." (New York Times)

"Isabel Allende is a grand storyteller who writes with surpassing compassion and insight. Her place as an icon of world literature was secured long ago. She will be celebrated, by readers and writers alike, for generations to come." (Khaled Hosseini)