Language is essential to a writer. and language is as personal as blood. I live in California, in English, but I can only write in Spanish. In fact all the fundamental things in my life happen in Spanish, like scolding my grandchildren, cooking or making love.

And may be this is the point where I should tell you how and why I became a writer.

My life seems to be about pain, losses, love and memory. Pain and losses are the teachers, they make me grow. Love helps me to endure and gives me joy. (I know it sounds corny!) Memory is the raw material for all my writing.

I was born during the Second World War. I look good for my age, don't I? It takes a lot of work and money... Yes, I am a crone, a relic from the pyramids, but not yet totally senile. I grew up in a patriarchal family where my grand-father was second only to God Almighty. My mother married against his will to the wrong man, my father. During their honey-moon on a cruise in the Pacific the groom was constantly sea-sick, however they managed to conceive me. In the next three years my parents were separated most of the time, but in the short periods that they spent together they had two more kids. Fertility runs in my family, I am fortunate to have reached womanhood in the era of the pill.

My parent's marriage was a disaster from the start. One day, around my third birthday, my father went to buy cigarettes and never returned. This is the first great loss of my life, and may be that is why I can never write about fathers. There are so many abandoned children in my books that I could start an orphanage. My father left my mother stranded in a foreign country with three small kids. To make things worse, there is no divorce in Chile. It is the only country in the galaxy without divorce. Somehow my mother managed to annul her marriage and thus she became a single mother with three illegitimate children. She had no money, little education, no particular skills. Her only choice was to go back to her father for help, which she did.

The home of my grand-parents, where I spent my childhood, was inhabited by wild pets, strange humans and benevolent ghosts.

My grandmother was a charming lady who had little interest in the material world. She spent most of her time experimenting with telepathy and talking to the souls of the dead during her séances. This clairvoyant lady who could move objects without touching them, served as model for Clara del Valle in my first novel, THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. She died long ago, at a young age, but like my daughter Paula, she is a constant presence in my life. My grand-father was a solid Basque, stubborn and strong as a mule, who gave me the gift of discipline. He could remember hundreds of folk tales and long epic poems; he spoke in proverbs. He lived to be a century old and during the last part of his life he read many times the Bible from cover to cover and the Encyclopedia Britannic from A to Z. He gave me the love of language and stories.

In my family happiness was irrelevant. My grand-parents would have been astounded to learn that people actually spend money in therapy to get over their unhappiness. For them life was naturally painful and the rest was nonsense. Satisfaction came from doing the right thing, from family, honor, service, learning, enduring. Joy was present in many ways in our lives, of course, and love was not the least of them, but we never spoke of love either, it would have been extremely embarrassing. Sentiments flowed silently. There was not much touching or kissing; children were not praised or pampered, it was believed to be unhealthy. Physical appearance and the functions of the body were ignored. It was a crime of bad taste to talk about religion, politics, health, and above all, money. My family practiced charity abundantly and discreetly. Generosity was not a virtue, it was a duty, nothing to brag about.