Skip to main content
Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing (CCWW)

Gioconda Belli

Gioconda Belli was born on 9 December 1948 in Managua, Nicaragua, into a wealthy family: her father, Humberto Belli, was a businessman and her mother, Gloria Pereira, was the founder of the Experimental Theater of Managua. She received a strong educational foundation, studying at the Colegio de La Asunción in Managua and at the Real Colegio de Santa Isabel in Madrid, Spain, where she obtained her Bachelor's degree in 1965. After graduating in Advertising and Journalism in Philadelphia (USA), she decided to settle in Managua. 

In 1970 her poems were first published in magazines such as El Gallo Ilustrado, Prensa Literaria and Nicaracuac. Political commitment and the feminine being and feeling are two fundamental themes in her work, which is why her poetry was considered revolutionary in its approach to the female body and sensuality. Her book Sobre la grama won in 1972 Mariano Fiallos Gil Prize – the most prestigious Nicaraguan poetry prize at the time – of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua.

Gioconda_Belli_Mondhitze_LeipzigerBuchmesse2016 (Smokeonthewater WIkiCommons CC BY-SA 4.0).jpg
Gioconda Belli at the 2016 Leipzig Book Fair (Image: Smokeonthewater via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

A staunch opponent of the Somoza dictatorship, Belli had to go into exile in Mexico and Costa Rica and joined the ranks of the FSLN, an organization in which she was active from 1970 to 1994. She was a member of the Political-Diplomatic Commission of the FSLN, transporting weapons and travelling through Europe and Latin America gathering resources and sharing her experiences of the Sandinista struggle. In 1978 she won the prestigious Casa de las Americas Award in Cuba for her poetry collection Línea de Fuego. After the Sandinista victory, she represented the movement on the National Council of Political Parties and acted as spokeswoman for the FSLN in the electoral campaign of that year. Belli would then abandon politics, dedicating herself to writing her first novel and continuing to write poetry. 

In 1988 Belli published her first novel La Mujer Habitada, which became a great international success and would be translated into eight languages. It was followed by Sofía de los Presagios and Waslala. Her memoir El país bajo mi piel was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2001 and selected as one of the best books of the year by the newspaper. 

Belli’s career and reputation continued to grow with an array of literary prizes bestowed upon her. Her novel El infinito en la palma de la mano won the Biblioteca Breve – one of the most prestigious Spanish awards – in 2008 and was awarded the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz award at the Guadalajara Book Fair in Mexico. In 2010 Belli received the Latin American prize La Otra Orilla for her novel El País de las Mujeres, which is set in the fictional Faguas that pervades Belli’s oeuvre. 

In more recent years, her novel Las fiebres de la memoria was a finalist for the Mario Vargas Llosa Novel Prize in May 2019 and, in October 2020, her poetry collection El pez rojo que nada en el pecho won the XXX Premio de Poesía Jaime Gil de Biedma in Segovia, Spain. Belli’s record on press freedom and advocating for women was recognised in 2018, when she was awarded the Hermann Kesten Prize.

Compiled by Elena López (Barcelona)