Tearful Isabel Allende gets Chile's National Literature Prize

Sep 3, 2010, 15:46 GMT

Santiago - Chilean author Isabel Allende was in tears Thursday, as she received the South American country's National Literature Prize.

The prestigious prize - which the late Chilean author Gabriela Mistral obtained six years after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature - generated great debate in Chile, pitting those who support Allende's work against those who argue that she writes bestsellers rather than literature.

'If the prize had been granted by my colleagues, I would never have gotten it,' Allende told Chilean television.

'This comes from a campaign by readers,' she added. 'I did not want to get myself between the legs of the horses.'

The California-based author of The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, among many other works, is Latin America's bestselling and most widely translated author.

Allende, 68, whose father was a cousin of the late Chilean president Salvador Allende, said she was not expecting the distinction.

'In Chile, as in many countries, people do not forgive success, unless one is a footballer,' the author said.

Her critics were not impressed, and they argued that officials were giving book sales priority over quality.

'In that case we should give the Nobel Prize to JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter,' said author Marco Antonio de la Parra.

Former Chilean presidents Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei, Michelle Bachelet and Ricardo Lagos, as well as many Chilean artists, campaigned in favour of granting Allende the prize.