When I was a teen, I read The House of the Spirits, and it turned my world upside down.

I was mesmerized by the women that jumped off the page and by Isabelle

Yende, the brilliant writer who had brought them to life. Isabel's books have been translated into more

than 42 languages and have sold more than 74 million copies worldwide. And now she's out with her

25th book, The Soul of a Woman. It's part memoir, part meditation on feminism.

The whole book feels like an act of generosity. And that spirit carries through in my conversation

with this incomparable icon. You have a tradition. January 8th, you sit down, you begin writing.

Were you able to do that even this year in the midst of a pandemic?

I did it last year and this year too.

The pandemic has been good for me because it forces me to sit here in the attic where I work

and just be here. I'm used to having a lot of time alone in silence. That's something that I need for

my work. So it has not been so hard. Plus, I am living in a sort of extended honeymoon because I got married right before the pandemic.

Now we are locked in here with my husband.

There's nowhere to escape.

I was about to say that this is when a lot of relationships are going to be tested.

Well, ours has been tested, and I think we are surviving pretty well.

We are learning patience, and I needed to learn patients much more than him, actually.

Even in your 70s?

He's a patient man. Yeah.

Still learning patients. I love that when I imagined your attic, this is the most elegant attic I've ever seen.

You want to take a look?

There's nothing much here.

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