An Evening with Isabel Allende at Academy of the Sacred Heart

Garden District Book Shop hosts Isabel Allende in conversation with Anne Gisleson at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 17, at the Academy of the Sacred Heart (4521 Saint Charles Avenue). Tickets are available here, and each ticket includes one signed copy of In the Midst of Winter, Allende’s new book. Books will be distributed to ticket holders at the event.

Allende, international best-selling author of over 20 books has just released a new book, In the Midst of Winter, a sweeping novel about three very different people who are brought together in a mesmerizing story that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil. Exploring the timely issues of displaced people, immigration, and human rights, the book recalls Allende’ landmark novel The House of Spirits.

About Isabel (in her own words) “It is very strange to write one’s biography because it is just a list of dates, events, and achievements. In reality, the most important things about my life happened in the secret chambers of my heart and have no place in a biography. My most significant achievements are not my books, but the love I share with a few people—especially my family—and the ways in which I have tried to help others. When I was young, I often felt desperate: so much pain in the world and so little I could do to alleviate it! But now I look back at my life and feel satisfied because few days went by without me at least trying to make a difference.”

Anne Gisleson’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Oxford American, The Believer, Ecotone, The Los Angeles Times, and has been selected for inclusion in several anthologies, includingBest American Non-Required Reading. For years, Anne was chair of the Creative Writing Program at the internationally-renowned New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

Anne ‘s engrossing new memoir, The Futilitarians has just been released. A memoir of loss, friendship, and literature explores how the author and her husband, devastated by the deaths of family members and the loss of their home in Hurricane Katrina, established a reading group with friends who also endured difficult life setbacks.

A portion of the proceeds is being donated to Academy of the Sacred Heart.

Doors will open at 6:00 p.m.

Street parking plus a limited number of offstreet parking spaces in the Sacred Heart parking lot (entrance on Carondelet St.)

Please Note: This event does not include a book signing. Books included with tickets are pre-signed editions of In the Midst of Winter, specially bound by the publisher. (Additional pre-signed copies will be available for purchase at the event.)