NICARAGUA, 1948
Belli's literary career has from its beginning been intimately connected to her political life and the political life of her country, Nicaragua. Her early poetry, particularly Sobre la grama, primarily celebrates womanhood. Some of her recurring poetic themes include erotic pleasures, the beauty and satisfactions of all the stages of motherhood and the irrepressible longing to live a full, creative, committed life.
She´s written six books of poetry. Her first novel, La mujer
habitada, 1988 was awarded the Ana Seghers Prize and the Prize for the Best
Political Novel of 1989 in Germany. Other novels are: Sofía de los
presagios, (1990), Waslala (1996), The Scroll of Seduction (2005),
Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand, 2008 (winner of the Biblioteca Breve and
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz literary prizes) and "In the land of
Women"(2010), winner of the La Otra Orilla Latin American Fiction Prize. In
2001, Belli published El país bajo mi piel, (The Country Under my
Skin), subtitled memoirs of love and war, an intimate retelling of the
history of the Sandinista movement and her participation in the historic events
it precipitated. The book was a finalist at The Los Angeles Times Book Awards. In 2014, she was awarded the Andrés Sabella International Prize for Literary Merits at Antofagasta, Chile, and received the Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana in 2023.
Gioconda Belli's Website
"Her poetry is a kind of public love poetry that comes closer, to expressing
the passion of Nicaragua than anything I have yet heard."
Salman Rushdie
"Gioconda Belli is one of the most gifted writers to have come out
of Central America in the last ten years.
She possesses a wonderfully free and original talent."
Harold Pinter
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NOVEL, 2024
Valeria made great sacrifices in her commitment as an active protagonist of the political changes in her country, Nicaragua. After her death in Madrid, in complete solitude, it is up to her...
ESSAY, 2022.
"I am the thinking woman / one day my eyes will light up fireflies," writes Gioconda Belli in a poem. In these pages we follow the writer across a range of texts written at different times as she...
NOVEL, 2018
1847. Charles Choiseul de Praslin, a noble in the court of Louis Phillip I of Orléans, King of France, finds himself accused of the terrible murder of his wife, whom he was cheating on with...
POETRY, 2017
Belli's first book, On the Grass (1972), which won a prize for poetry from the Universidad Nacional de Nicaragua, revolutionized Latin American poetry with its frank exploration of the body and...
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, 2016
"One day, in the damp jungle of the tropics, where charming trees live and orchids and creepers take refuge, Enea and Alia climbed down from the top of a Ceiba tree and realized that they were the...
NOVEL, 2014
El intenso calor de la luna (The Intense Heat of the Moon) tells the story of Emma, a Flaubertian character who rebels against the role that society imposes upon mature women. When her sexy,...
POETRY, 2011
Gioconda Belli has made a selection of her best poems out of all her poetry. This is a celebration of poetry and it shows the artistic vitality of the author, and her never-ending search of both...
NOVEL, 2010
LA OTRA ORILLA NOVEL PRIZE 2010 What would a country governed exclusively by women be like? The Party of the Erotic Left (PEL) has won the presidential elections in Faguas, a small country...
Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand
NOVEL, 2008
WINNER OF THE 50º BILIOTECA BREVE PRIZE SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ PRIZE 2008 The astounding tale of our origins has probably been the source of more fascination...
NOVEL, 2005
A historian and a young woman with an incredible resemblance to Queen Juana de Castilla investigate the enigma of the monarch better known as Juana the Madwoman. Did love drive her crazy, as the...
SHORT STORY, 2004
A group of artists, the Designers of All Things, are charged with designing animals and plants for a world still under construction. Following rules dictated by the Ancient in Charge of Wisdom,...
MEMOIRS, 2000
"I have been two women and lived two lives. One of my women wanted to do everything according to the classic model for femininity: marry, have children and be contented, docile and caring. The...
NOVEL, 1996
Melisandra dangles her legs over the river that flows slowly next to her grandfather's farm. She is waiting with the patience characteristic of the inhabitants of Fagua for the annual arrival of...
NOVEL, 1990
At the age of seven, little Sofia gets lost in a crowd while her parents are having a heated argument, leaving her home at the gypsy camp. Although fate provides her with some nice parents and a...
NOVEL, 1990
After finishing her architecture studies in Europe, Lavinia returns to Latin America to start out on her path as an independent woman. But her plans change when she meets Felipe, with whom she...
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