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Gioconda Belli | |
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 Belli at Leipzig Book Fair 2016 | |
| Born | December 9, 1948 Managua, Nicaragua |
| Occupation | Poet, author, novelist |
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Gioconda Belli (born December 9, 1948) is a Nicaraguan-born novelist and poet known for her contributions to Nicaraguan literature.
Gioconda Belli [1] grew up in a wealthy family in Managua. [2] Her father is Humberto Belli Zapata and her brother is Humberto Belli. [3]
She attended boarding school in Spain, [2] graduated from the Royal School of Santa Isabel in Madrid, and studied advertising and journalism at the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism in Philadelphia. [4] She married [1] and had her first daughter at 19 when she returned to Nicaragua. [5]
Belli began her career at Pepsi-Cola as liaison to the company's advertising agency, Publisa, which then hired her as an account executive. [6]
Through one of her colleagues at the advertising agency, Belli met Camilo Ortega, who introduced her to the Sandinistas and asked her to join the group. [7]
In 1970, [5] Belli joined the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship, [8] sworn into the movement by Leana Ortega, Camilo Ortega's wife. [9] Belli's work for the movement led to her being forced into exile in Mexico in 1975. [10] Returning in 1979 just before the Sandinista victory, [11] she became FSLN's international press liaison in 1982 and the director of State Communications in 1984. During that time she met Charles Castaldi, an American NPR journalist, whom she married in 1987. [12] After 1990 she split her time between Managua and Los Angeles. She has since left the FSLN and became a major critic of the Ortega government. She lives in exile in Madrid. [13]
In 1970, Belli published her first poems in the literary supplement of Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa. [14] In 1972, she won the Premio de Poesía Mariano Fiallos Gil award from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua. [15] [16]
1988, Belli's book La Mujer Habitada (The Inhabited Woman), a semi-autobiographical novel that raised gender issues for the first time in the Nicaraguan revolutionary narratives, brought her increased attention; this book has been published in several languages and was on the reading list at four universities in the United States. The novel follows two parallel stories: the indigenous resistance to the Spanish and modern insurgency in Central America with various points in common: women's emancipation, passion, and a commitment to liberation. In 2000, she published her autobiography, emphasizing her involvement in the revolutionary movement, El país bajo mi piel, published under the name The Country Under My Skin in the United States; it was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2003. [17] Belli continues publishing and maintains that poetry is her most important work. Belli was the recipient of the Premio Casa de las Américas in 1978. [18] In 2008 Belli received the Premio Biblioteca Breve for her book El infinito en la palma de la mano (Infinity in the Palm of The Hand), an allegory about Adam and Eve in paradise. [19]
Belli's books have been published in numerous languages.
Her 2010 book was submitted with the title "Crónicas de la Izquierda Erótica", but had to be changed to "El País de las Mujeres", since the previous title was too similar to that of a 1973 book by Ana María Rodas: Poemas de la Izquierda Erótica. The book tells the story of a world governed by women. In the novel, she portrays a group of women that take power by means of a Political Party named "Partido de la Izquierda Erótica". This is the same name as a movement formed by women during the 80s, to which Belli belonged, which had been named as a tribute to Rodas´ work. Her novel El intenso calor de la luna was released in August in Latin America, and in September 2014 in Spain. [20]
Belli opposed the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. From 1970, when she began writing her poems and like many intellectuals of her generation, she joined the ranks of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), at that time a clandestine and persecuted organization whose aim was the overthrow of the Somoza regime. She was a clandestine courier, transported weapons, travelled around Europe and Latin America obtaining resources and spreading the word about the Sandinista struggle. She became a member of the FSLN's Political-Diplomatic Commission. [21]
In 2018, Belli took a stand against the government of Daniel Ortega, which emerged from the 2016 elections, and became an active member of the Sandinista renewal movement. [22] [23]
In February 2023, the Ortega government stripped Nicaraguan citizenship from Belli. [24] On February 23, 2023, Belli accepted Chilean citizenship after the Chilean Government offered nationality and asylum to all the Nicaraguans banished by Ortega.
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician and the 58th president of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously, he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1985, and then as the 54th President from 1985 to 1990. During his first term, he implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua. In later years, Ortega's left-wing radical politics cooled significantly, leading him to pursue pro-business policies and even rapprochement with the Catholic Church. However, in 2022, Ortega resumed repression of the Church, and has imprisoned prelate Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
Sergio Ramírez Mercado is a Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who was a key figure in 1979 revolution, served in the leftist Government Junta of National Reconstruction and as vice president of the country 1985–1990 under the presidency of Daniel Ortega. He has been described as Nicaragua's "best-known living writer". Since the 1990s, he has been involved in the left-wing opposition to the Nicaraguan government, in particular in the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista. He was exiled from the country in 2021 and stripped of his nationality by the government in 2023.
The Junta of National Reconstruction was the provisional government of Nicaragua from the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in July 1979 until January 1985, with the election of Sandinista National Liberation Front’s Daniel Ortega as president.
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Clara Isabel Alegría Vides, also known by her pseudonym Claribel Alegría, was a Nicaraguan-Salvadoran poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. She was awarded the 2006 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
General elections were held in Nicaragua on 5 November 2006. The country's voters went to the polls to elect a new President of the Republic and 90 members of the National Assembly. Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was elected president with 38% of the vote, defeating Eduardo Montealegre with 28%, José Rizo with 27%, Edmundo Jarquín with 6%, and Edén Pastora with 0.3%. The FSLN also emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly, winning 38 seats.
Dora María Téllez Argüello is a Nicaraguan historian known for her involvement in the Nicaraguan Revolution. As a young university medical student in León in the 1970s, Téllez was recruited by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Téllez went on to become a comandante and fought alongside later president Daniel Ortega in the revolution that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. In the subsequent FSLN government, she served as Health Minister under Ortega and has also been an advocate for women's rights. She ultimately became a critic of repression and corruption under President Ortega and left the FSLN in 1995 to found the party Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), later renamed Unamos. Along with several other opposition figures, she was arrested in June 2021 by the Ortega government.
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Sofía Montenegro Alarcón is a Nicaraguan journalist, social researcher, and feminist. Montenegro's family were militarily aligned with the Somoza forces, but her feminist and Marxist studies moved her to join with the opposition to the regime. She fought in the Sandinista Revolution and though initially supportive of the Sandinista Party, later became an outspoken critic, saying it had moved to the right. She served as an editor of various divisions of the official Sandinista newspaper, Barricada, until 1994, when she founded the Center for Communication Research (CINCO) as an independent research organization free of government influence. She has written broadly on power, gender, and social interaction.
Vidaluz Meneses Robleto was a Nicaraguan librarian, poet, dean, and social activist.
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Humberto Belli Pereira is a Nicaraguan politician and writer. The former Minister of Education in Nicaragua during the presidency of conservative Violeta Chamorro, Belli is also the author of five books.
Leticia Herrera Sánchez is a Nicaraguan politician and former guerrilla leader. She was one of the first women commanders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against the dictatorial government of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua from 1974 to 1979.
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Hugo Torres Jiménez was a Nicaraguan Sandinista guerrilla and military leader who was a brigadier general in the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. During the Sandinista National Liberation Front effort to overthrow the Somoza family regime, Torres was the only guerrilla who participated in both the 1974 Christmas party raid that freed future President Daniel Ortega among other prisoners, and the 1978 raid on the National Palace, freeing another 60 political prisoners. In the late 1990s he became a critic of Ortega, leaving the FSLN to join the Sandinista Renovation Movement and later its successor the Democratic Renewal Union, serving as vice-president of both parties. In June 2021 he was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures by the Ortega administration. He died the following February.
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Rosa Adelina Barahona Castro is a Nicaraguan psychologist and politician who has been the country's Minister of Defence since August 2019.
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