Gioconda Belli

Biography

Gioconda Belli, a poet, writer and political activist, was born in Managua, Nicaragua in 1948. She studied Advertising and Journalism in Philadelphia, and then returned to Nicaragua where she began to write. Her first book of poems was published in 1970. In 1972, she won the Premio de Poesía Mariano Fiallos Gil, from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua.

In 1970 Belli joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), an armed revolutionary group that struggled against the 45-year dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Her political activism has influenced her writing, and has often been concerned with questions of equality, gender and the environment, especially in Latin America.

Belli’s interest in nature is closely related to her experience of the Nicaraguan natural environment and forces, characterized by vegetation, volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Belli also relates nature to woman, establishing a closer relationship with the environment

Some of her poetry books include: Sobre la grama (1972), De la costilla de Eva (1986), Apogeo (1997), Mí intima multitud (2003), among others. Her novel Waslala: Memorial del futuro (1996), set in a futuristic Central America ravaged by war and environmental devastation, is notable for its ecofeminist portrayal of the search for utopia amid a dystopian setting.

Her site is: https://giocondabelli.org/

Poems

Caminata matutina

Canción de cuna para un país suelto en llanto

Consuelo para la temporalidad

El siroco

Huellas

Metamorphosis

Permanencia de los jardines

Presagios de la lluvia

Related Resources

Alcocer, Rudyard. ‘The Ghost of La Malinche: Trees and Treason in Gioconda Belli’s La Mujer Habitada’. Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 17.4 (2010): 735–753. EBSCOhost. Web.
Almsick, Ingrid van. ‘Gioconda Belli: Révolution et Utopie Sociale Dans La Littérature Nicaraguayenne Contemporaine-Le Retour Aux Sources Indiennes’. Eds. Theo D’haen and Patricia Krüs. 643 vols. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi, 2000. 215–221. EBSCOhost. Web.
Canivell, Maria Odette. ‘The Magic and the Real in Magical Realism: The Work of Gioconda Belli as a Paradigm’. CEA Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association 81.1 (2019): 24–30. Print.
De Fays, Hélène. ‘The Revolutionary Empowerment of Nature in Gioconda Belli’s The Inhabited Woman’. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 38.2 (2005): 95–110. Print.
Frazier-Yoder, Amy. ‘Prison Cell and Key: Scrutiny of the Physical Self in Olga Orozco’s Museo Salvaje and Gioconda Belli’s Sobre La Grama’. Hispanófila 181 (2017): 153–168. EBSCOhost. Web.
Hood, Edward Waters, and Cecilia Ojeda. ‘Entrevista Con Gioconda Belli’. Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 23.2 (1994): 125–132. EBSCOhost. Web.
Madsen, Nancy Gates. ‘Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Ecology and Human Rights in Gioconda Belli’s Waslala’. Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 11.1 (2020): 134–151. Print.
Mantero, José María. ‘Mi Íntima Multitud de Giaconda Belli y La Fragmentación de La Utopía’. Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 40.2 (2011): 33–43. Print.
March, Kathleen N. ‘Gioconda Belli: The Erotic Politics of the Great Mother’. Monographic Review/Revista Monográfica 6 (1990): 245–257. Print.
Patiño, Julia E. ‘Naturaleza, Luz y Color En La Mujer Habitada de Gioconda Belli’. Ed. Juana Arancibia. Westminster, CA: Juana Alcira Arancibia; Instituto Literario y Cultural Hispanico; Instituto Literario y Cultural Hispánico, 2005. 297–306. EBSCOhost. Web.
Postema, Joel. ‘Testimonial Ecology in Gioconda Belli’s El País de Las Mujeres’. Studies in Twentieth and Twenty First Century Literature 39.2 (2015): 1–12. Print.
Regoczy, Graciela. ‘Naturaleza y Cultura En Sofía de Los Presagios de Gioconda Belli’. Ixquic: Revista Hispánica Internacional de Análisis y Creación 2 (2000): 84–95. Print.
Reid, Alana. ‘The Erotic Union of Marxist and Feminist Thought in Gioconda Belli’s La Mujer Habitada’. Letras Femeninas 36.2 (2010): 61–81. Print.
Venti, Patricia. ‘Entrevista Con Gioconda Belli’. Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios 34 (2006): 125-132. EBSCOhost. Web.
White, Stephen F. ‘La Homogeneización de La Naturaleza En La Obra de Gioconda Belli’. Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 1.2 (2010): 97–112. Print.