Eastern students, faculty and staff filled the Sullivan Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Tuesday to learn about the life and works of world-renowned Latina author Isabel Allende.

Karen Taylor, associate Spanish professor, gave a lecture about Allende’s life and writing career, featuring two of Allende’s latest novels, “The Daughter of Fortune” and “Sepia Portrait.”

“I asked to give a speech about Isabel because she is a best-selling novelist all over the world in English and in Spanish. She fascinates me through her interesting life, which is shown through her writing,” Taylor said.

Allende, a native of Chile, grew up during that country’s period of repression that started in 1973, Taylor said.

“Isabel watched how the Chilean government tried to wage a war against communism and tortured and killed a lot of people in the process,” Taylor said.

Allende wrote critical articles about the actions of Chilean government officials and was later exiled to Venezuela after receiving death threats for her comments and coverage about the Chilean government.

“During her 13 years in Venezuela, she began her career as a novelist, writing `The House of the Spirits,’ a fictional story that was based on her family’s life back in Chile,” Taylor said.

Allende went on to write several books after the success of her first novel.

Taylor said two of Allende’s novels have had movies based on them, including “The House of Spirits,” starring Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder and “Of Love and Shadows,” starring Jennifer Connelly and Antonio Banderas.

Taylor showed two short film segments about Allende, which told how her life in Chile, her new life in America and all her life’s trials make her the writer she is.

“I find it amazing how Isabel Allende combines the two strands of her life in Chile and America and gives us such interesting and colorful stories and characters in her novels,” Taylor said.