Laura Restrepo holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Literature and a postgraduate degree in Political Science, both from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. She has been a schoolteacher since the age of 17, a literature professor at the National University of Colombia and the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, a peace negotiator between the armed insurgency and the Colombian government, and a professor at Cornell University in the United States. With Médecins Sans Frontières, she has written reportage pieces in Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, India, Greece, Colombia, and Mexico, which have been published in El País Semanal, La Jornada, Página 12, and La otra orilla. For the past six years, she has served on the Board of Trustees of the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid. She has been a Guggenheim Foundation fellow and has received prestigious awards, including Italy’s Grinzane Cavour Prize, the Prix France Culture, and the Alfaguara Novel Prize for Delirium.
Photo: © Nathaly Hurtado