Isabel Allende to give talk

Isabel Allende, the Chilean author and former journalist whose 12 books have met with critical and popular acclaim, will present the Presidential and Endowed Lecture in the Humanities and Arts at 7 p.m. Monday, May 10, in Kresge Auditorium. A lecture discussion will be held the following day, May 11, at 4 p.m. at the Humanities Center. The events are open to the public.

Allende, 61, will discuss her 2003 memoir, My Invented Country, in a lecture titled "A Sense of Place." The cousin of ousted Chilean president Salvador Allende worked as a writer for magazines and television and for film documentaries and as a journalist in Chile and Venezuela before writing her first novel, The House of the Spirits, published in 1982. Her later work includes Eva Luna (1985), Paula (1994), Aphrodite (1997) and Daughter of Fortune (1999). Allende's work has been translated into 27 languages.