Isabel Allende is a Chilean journalist and author known for penning novels in the style of magic realism. She won worldwide acclaim when her bestselling novel, “The House of Spirits,” was published in 1982. She has since written nearly 20 more works. Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold over 57 million copies. Her works both entertain and educate readers by weaving intriguing stories with significant historical events. She describes her fiction as “realistic literature,” rooted in her remarkable upbringing and the mystical people and events that fueled her imagination. In this lecture, Allende reads the first chapter of her novel, “Ripper,” and sits down for a question and answer session with Mark Axelrod, Director of the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing.