Gioconda BELLI

Born in Managua in 1948. While winning the poetry prize of the National University of Nicaragua for her first book, Sobre la grama (1972), she participated in the struggle against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. She had to go into exile in Mexico and Costa Rica. With the triumph of the Sandinismo in 1979, she held several governmental positions. She left the party still led by Daniel Ortega with a bitter taste for the failure of the project, and in her memoir The country under my skin she narrates those years. Her work includes other collections of poems: Línea de fuego (1978, Casa de las Américas Prize), Truenos y Arco iris, Amor insurrecto, De la costilla de Eva, Apogeo, Mi íntima multitud (2002, Generación del 27 International Poetry Prize) and Fuego soy apartado y espada puesta lejos (City of Melilla International Poetry Prize). In 1988 she ventured into storytelling with the novel La mujer habitada (1988, Prize of the Foundation of German Booksellers, Librarians and Publishers; Anna Seghers Prize of the German Academy of Arts). Her fiction work is completed with Sofía de los presagios, Waslala, El pergamino de la seducción and El infinito en la palma de la mano (Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve Award). She also writes short stories for children.

photo© courtesy Gioconda Belli

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