Literary Legend Isabel Allende to Present the 2024 Beall-Russell Lecture in the Humanities

Isabel Allende will offer the annual lecture Oct. 9 on the power of stories

October 8, 2024
Isabel Allende headshot

(Photo credit: Lavin Agency)

Contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin, 254-327-8012 
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Baylor University will welcome literary legend, social activist and feminist icon Isabel Allende for this year’s Beall-Russell Lecture in the Humanities at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, at the Mark and Paul Hurd Welcome Center. Allende’s lecture is titled "The Power of Stories: An Afternoon with Isabel Allende." The lecture is free and open to the public. 

A world-renowned author who has sold over 77 million books translated into more than 40 languages, Allende is the first Spanish-language writer to receive an honorary National Book Award medal. She is now the subject of a three-part HBO miniseries, revealing the person behind the legendary literary career spanning four decades. 

“As a committee, we try to rotate speakers who represent different areas of the humanities and Isabel Allende is established as one of the most respected Latin American writers – one of the most respected writers, period – the world has ever known,” said lecture co-chair Kimberly Kellison, Ph.D., associate dean of humanities and social sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences and associate professor of history at Baylor. “She has been at the top of our list for a good many years, and we are thrilled to bring her to Baylor this fall for the annual Beall-Russell lecture.” 

Allende’s talks are a testament to her bold and imaginative writing, bringing generations of readers together to laugh, occasionally cry and always be inspired.

“Allende’s stories unearth and illustrate a wide array of human feelings and emotions,” Kellison said. “We hope that her audience will leave the lecture with a deeper appreciation of the immense power and potential of human language and with a renewed understanding of the ways that storytelling can capture both the beauty and the challenges of life – in essence, helping us be fully alive as human beings.”

A native of Chile, Allende was forced into exile following the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende. Since then, she has written over 27 books, including The House of the SpiritsEva LunaDaughter of Fortune (an Oprah pick), Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the SeaMaya’s NotebookThe Japanese LoverRipper, and In the Midst of Winter.

Allende’s non-fiction books include the memoirs Paula and The Sum of Our Days, as well as The Soul of a Woman, a passionate and inspiring meditation on Allende’s feminist roots. Chosen as one of Amazon’s best non-fiction books of the year, The Soul of a Woman is a work that Allende hopes will “light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine.” Her incredible life and career are now dramatized in the HBO miniseries Isabel. Her latest book, The Wind Knows My Name was named to NPR‘s Books We Love.

Allende is the founder of the Isabel Allende Foundation, which promotes and preserves the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected. She has received 15 honorary doctorates, including one from Harvard University, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and has received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

History of the Beall-Russell Lectures 

The Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities were established in 1982 with a financial gift from Virginia B. Ball of Muncie, Indiana. The lecture series is named to honor her mother, Mrs. John A. Beall, and Lily Russell, former dean of women at Baylor, both Baylor alumnae of the Class of 1910. The lectures provide a unique opportunity for Baylor students and faculty to meet and hear from renowned scholars in the humanities. 

“The humanities have flourished for centuries through various academic disciplines such as history, literature and language – increasingly, the field of public humanities connects a wider and broader audience with the academic study of the humanities,” Kellison said. "I hope that the lectures remind students, faculty, staff and members of the Waco community that the study of the humanities can take various shape and form, and that the humanities play a vital part in our lives, connecting us to one another in significant and impactful ways.”

Past lecturers have included American literary critic and scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., Prize-winning author and Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, artist and designer Maya Lin, poet Maya Angelou, historian David McCollough, writer Amy Tan, journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson, filmmaker Ken Burns and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Czeslaw Milosz. 

For more information, visit the Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities website

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