Paula Frías Allende

Paula Frías Allende (22 October 1963 – 6 December 1992) was the daughter of Chilean-American author, Isabel Allende Llona. Her grandfather was first cousin to Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973.

Paula worked as a humanitarian for impoverished communities located in Venezuela and Spain, using her skills as an educator and psychologist. She married Ernesto Diaz in Venezuela, in 1991.

Paula was only 29 when she died in 1992. She went into a coma after complications of porphyria had hospitalised her. In 1991, an error in medication resulted in severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state. Her mother had her moved to a hospital in California and later to her home where she died on 6 December 1992.

Isabel Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on December 9, 1996, in homage to her daughter. Her autobiographical book Paula is dedicated to her. The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected."