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I'm Alan Alda, and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

I think that the house of the spirits was like an exercise in nostalgia, trying to recreate the world I had lost.

To reunite those who were displaced, my family and friends, in a way to save my own memory, because after some time I was beginning to forget, to forget people and places.

And stories, the wonderful stories that my grandfather would tell me.

That's Isabel Ayendi. In 1982, using the literary style known as Magical Realism, her novel, The House of the Spirits, was a breakthrough for women writers in Latin America.

In our conversation, we talk about her writing, her work to empower women, her passions, and her thoughts on flirting.

Isabel, I'm so excited to talk to you. This is so great that we can talk this morning.

Well, my honor, absolutely.

No, mine. You said something once that really interested me.

Oh, please don't quote me because I could never remember what it was.

Well, I'm going to quote you exactly.

It was something like, what's true than truth? And I think you said story.

So tell me about that. How is story true than truth?

Okay, let me give you an example.

Sometimes when we look at the news, we are overwhelmed by the problem.

Let's say famine in Ethiopia.

And we know that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who are starving.

But then after you've seen it two or three times on TV, you lose connection with it because it's just numbers.

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