from Reuters
Image: AFP

It had been 13 years since she wrote Paula, which described the death of her daughter, so her agent suggested she write a book of memories.

That's how her new book La Suma de los Dias (The Sum of the Days), which will be released in English in April, begun.

"I started writing what had happened to the family since then," Allende said in an interview. "The book Paula ends when she dies. And this book starts when we throw her ashes in the woods. I tell Paula what has happened to her people, at this time," she added.

Allende, who started writing her best known work The House of the Spirits as a letter to her grandfather, said of her 18 books, Paula is the one that has generated the most response from readers.

"It's because people identify with personal history, they know it's a real story," she said.

"Sometimes a book like Paula shows that a problem exists and it is terrible, but there's also life, joy, color, and the new children that are born," the 65 year-old grandmother added.

Allende, a self-proclaimed feminist, said she has been defending the same problems and causes since she was 15 years old.

During a recent trip to Washington she said that despite women presidents in Chile and Argentina, a lot still needs to be done to solve the problems and to promote the rights of women in Latin America.

"One woman in power, two women in power, three women in power will not make the difference. The difference is the feminine energy in the ruling of the world," she said.

Allende thinks poverty and domestic violence are the main problems women face in the region. She urged young women not to give up the battle to improve the lives of women.

"The word feminist is no longer sexy. Nobody wants to be a feminist, because feminists are supposedly hairy lesbians. For God's sake!, if you don't like the word, change it", she said.

Allende believes a new word, mamism, which is linked to maternal love, which she said is unconditional and ferocious would be an appropriate replacement.

"It is this immense maternal energy, feminine, nourishing, without which humanity wouldn't exist, and this is what we have to respect and turn into a value," she added.

Allende suggested very young women and those whose children are grown and who are done saving marriages and building careers can make a difference.

"I belong to the first generation of women that are totally conscious about what's happening and willing to change the world", Allende said.