Celebrated Chilean author Isabel Allende joins in conversation with Caridad Svich, theater maker and playwright, about Allende’s The House of the Spirits in its many iterations: the novel, the play, and the upcoming staged performance by UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, directed by Michael Moran and presented at Zellerbach Playhouse April 26 through May 5.

Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim with her first novel, The House of the Spirits, published in 1982. In addition to launching Allende’s career as a renowned author, the book, which grew out of a farewell letter to her dying grandfather, also established her as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world. She has since written twenty-two more works; her latest is The Japanese Lover. She is also the author of a trilogy for young readers and books of nonfiction including Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs.

Caridad Svich received the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on Isabel Allende’s novel. Among her many other awards and accolades are the 2012 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, a 2018 Tanne Foundation Award, and a 2018 Ellen Stewart Career Achievement in Professional and Academic Theatre Award.

Michael Moran, the founder and executive director of Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland, will moderate the discussion.

For more information, visit artsdesign.berkeley.edu.