Isabel Allende and Her Mother Told Each Other (Almost) Everything

Modern Love

The New York Times

Storytelling, Nytimes, Nyt, Redemption, New York Times, Society & Culture, Loss, Essay, Love

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Isabel Allende began writing daily letters to her mother when she was a teenager. Over the next several decades, they exchanged over 24,000 of them. Allende credits their letter writing with removing the need for small talk and creating a deep bond between them. Knowing that she had to write to her mother every day pushed her to pay attention to her life in a way that, she says, was central to her becoming a writer. Letters have been a throughline in her books as well. Allende’s best-selling novel, “The House of the Spirits,” began as a letter to her dying grandfather. “The House of the Spirits” has just been adapted into a new TV series, and the connection between mothers and daughters is central to this multigenerational saga. In this episode of “Modern Love,” Allende tells the host Anna Martin about the transformative power of letter writing on her relationships and career.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now and...
0:03.2	Did you fall in love?
0:04.0	Love was stronger than anything.
0:07.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:11.3	There's to love.
0:15.2	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:17.5	This is Modern Love.
0:18.6	And today, we're celebrating Mother's Day with author and mother, Isabel Ayende.
0:24.7	Ayende is an icon of literature.
0:27.7	And it all started with a novel that many of you probably read in lit class, and I highly recommend you revisit, The House of the Spirits.
0:34.5	It's a masterpiece of magical realism, and it's just been adapted into a new TV show. The House of the Spirits. It's a masterpiece of magical realism, and it's just been adapted into a new
0:38.4	TV show. The House of the Spirits is about three generations of a family, and really the women in that
0:44.9	family. These women are complicated and conflicted and full of desire, and they're powerful, or as
0:52.3	much as they can be, in a world dominated by men.
0:55.9	This is a story about mothers and about daughters and what gets passed on between them.
1:01.0	The relationship between Aende and her own mother was built through writing letters, over
1:06.9	24,000 of them. They wrote to each other every day for over 30 years,
1:12.6	and they got to know each other in ways mothers and daughters usually don't.
1:16.6	I wanted to know what that was like, and I also wanted to know, should I be doing this?
1:21.6	I have a mom. I text her multiple times a day, every day,
1:25.6	but I've only ever written her a snail mail letter, I think, once
1:29.2	when I wanted to be rescued from
	...

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