Gioconda Belli

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.

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

© Daniel Mordzinski

Share ·

PUBLISHED BY: Spanish worldwide SEIX BARRAL / LIBROS DEL ZORRO ROJO / LA OTRA ORILLA / BARBARA FIORE EDITORA / NAVONA / PLANETA / TXALAPARTA / AVERSO POESIA | Arabic worldwide  GEBO / MADAREK / WARD BOOK HOUSE / DAR ALMADA | Brazil COMPANHIA DAS LETRAS/ ROSA DOS TEMPOS | Catalan PLANETA | China DUKU CULTURAL EXCHANGE / GUANGXI | English worldwide HARPER COLLINS | France ACTES SUD / ÉDITIONS YOVANA / CHERCHE MIDI | Germany DROEMER / PETER HAMMER VERLAG | Greece NEFELI | Korea HANMADANG | Hungary NYITOTT | India POORNA PUBLICATIONS | Indonesia MARJIN KIRI | Italy FELTRINELLI / TOPIPITTORI / E/O | The Netherlands DE GEUS | Portugal BIZANCIO / DOM QUIXOTE | Russia FIRM | Slovenia MLADINSKA KNJIGA | Türkiye LAIKA / METIS YAYINLARI / SEL

By Gioconda Belli

  • Fireflies

    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...

  • The Fever of Memory

    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...

  • On the Grass

    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...

  • The Day the Trees Flew

    CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, 2017

  • When Laughter Blossomed

    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...

  • The Intense Heat of the Moon

    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,...

  • Scandalous Honey

    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...

  • A Women's Nation

    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...

  • The Tight Hug of the Creeper

    CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, 2006

  • The Seduction Parchment

    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...

  • The Butterfly Workshop

    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,...

  • The Country Under My Skin

    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...

  • Waslala

    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...

  • Sofia the Soothsayer

    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...

  • The Inhabited Woman

    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...

Provença 293, 4-1 - 08037 · Barcelona +34 93 832 70 88 · · Member of ADAL