| Summary: | The primary aim of this thesis is to explore and critically interrogate Isabel Allende’s popularity cross-culturally in Britain and Spain. It analyses readers’ responses to Allende’s works as well as the discourses surrounding her public representation, an approach that is ‘readerly’ but must also take account of production and text. This approach is intended to further the understanding of Allende’s work which so far has always been analysed from a textual perspective. However, the relationship between Allende’s popularity, her texts, public representation and readers has not been yet analysed in detail. This thesis is innovative in other ways too. Methodologically, it approaches readers through the under studied cultural form of the reading group. It also incorporates a comparative dimension by looking at the reception of Allende in two different cultural contexts: the British and Spanish respectively. Finding out about Allende’s popularity has involved asking readers about their reading experiences as well as analysing the production of discourses around her public representation. Paul Ricoeur’s (1984, 1988) perspective on authorial intentions and readers’ responses to texts helps in understanding the intricacies surrounding what is involved in reading any text. It draws attention to Allende’s and her publishers’ authorial strategies, her ‘strategies of persuasion’ and the specificity of the lives and contexts of British and Spanish reading publics. Equally, this ‘readerly’ approach draws on feminist audience research and primarily on the work of Ien Ang and Janice Radway. Their work with viewers and readers respectively is particularly useful in establishing and developing methodological parameters for the study of reading groups. As a whole, this thesis contributes to the understanding of Allende’s cross-cultural popularity by situating readers at the centre.
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