Vintage Magic As a girl, Clara del Valle can read fortunes, predict the future, and make objects move as if they had lives of their own. Following the mysterious death of her sister, Rosa the Beautiful, Clara is mute for nine years. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon to the stern and volatile landowner Esteban Trueba. Isabel Allende was born in 1942 Lima, Peru, where her father was a diplomat. Raised in Chile, she went on to work as a journalist, playwright and children"s writer. After Pinochet"s CIA-backed coup of 1973, which deposed her cousin, President Salvador Allende, she received death threats and was forced to leave Chile for Venezuela. The House of Spirits, her first novel, published in 1982, became an international sensation. She now lives in California.