Isabel Allende

In 1981, Isabel Allende sat down to write a farewell letter to her 99-year-old grandfather, who was on his deathbed. That text was the genesis of "The House of the Spirits," her debut novel, a tremendous success adapted into a film starring Winona Ryder and Antonio Banderas in 1993. Twenty-five books later, she is the most widely read Spanish-language author in the world.