From an interview with Isabel Allende: ‘Everyone called me crazy for divorcing in my 70s. I’ve never been scared of being alone’.

“Allende is talking from her home in California, where she has been based since 1988 (she became an American citizen in 1993) and where she now lives with her third husband, Roger Cukras. Visible behind her are pristine white shutters with sunshine blazing through the slats. Lockdown, she says, has not made her slovenly – ‘I get up every morning around six. First I have a cup of coffee, then a shower and then I put on full makeup as if I was going out to the opera. I get dressed and put on high heels, and then I climb the stairs to this attic where I work. I won’t see anyone, not even the mailman, yet I dress up for myself.’”