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

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.

You can listen to Isabel Allende and Her Mother Told Each Other (Almost) Everything online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Isabel Allende and Her Mother Told Each Other (Almost) Everything is an episode from Modern Love by The New York Times.

This episode is 00:45:38 long.

This episode was published on May 6, 2026.

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