Chile Paula Isabel Allende (Margaret Sayers Peden, trans.) Attempting to celebrate life in the face of death, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende began this memoir as a letter to her comatose daughter, stricken with the genetic disorder porphyria, at age 26. With lyricism and a hint of the magical realism familiar to fans of her fiction, Allende recounts her childhood in Lebanon and Chile; her adulthood under her uncle Salvador's reign as Chilean president; and her metamorphosis from journalist to novelist in Venezuela and the United States. When writing a memoir, it helps to have outrageous relatives to ratchet up the drama of your tale, and Allende has them in spades: a vociferous stepfather, a clairvoyant grandmother, and delinquent uncles who torment Allende and her brothers. A potent mix of romance, politics, and intrigue, Allende's reality reflects the enchanted world of her novels -- and vice versa. Her lively tale cannot revive her daughter, however, and Allende's flights of fancy are grounded by the realities of Paula's deepening illness and ultimate passing. In Paula, we learn not only of one novelist's journey to adulthood, but are invited to struggle through the most difficult chapter in her personal history.