The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War

by Gioconda Belli

Book Overview

A passionate, lyrical, tough-minded account of an extraordinary life in art, revolution, and love. It's a book to relish, to read and re-read. Unforgettable. --Salmon Rushdie

An electrifying memoir from the acclaimed Nicaraguan writer ("A wonderfully free and original talent"--Harold Pinter) and central figure in the Sandinista Revolution.

Until her early twenties, Gioconda Belli inhabited an upper-class cocoon: sheltered from the poverty...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400032164
• ISBN13: 9781400032167
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

The naked heart of a dreaming woman

It's a great story, told in prose by a poet, but between the lines the verses of poetry perspire..perhaps an ambiguous relation, but isn't life dual after all, an amalgam of contradictions?.. I'd say that she is too benevolent with the Sandinistas, but as someone who has also left Nicaragua pushed away by the very particular circumstances that we all Nicaraguans have lived through, I understand her feelings and feel deeply identified with her agony- I was but a young Sandinista soldier once...nothing should transcend our own human condition- I could have died by then and wonder now what for- talking on our own humanity, we begin to turn less human by the measurement of letting anything stand above our own being,whether to become a saint, a martyr, a demon or a killer. At the end, I think Gioconda understands this very well, for she knows now that she is just like all others, a citizen of humankind, from here I'd say to her: Bravo Poetisa!

This Book Touched Me In So Many Ways

It's hard to know how to start writing about Gioconda Belli's autobiography, The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War, since it reached and touched me in so many ways. This is the story of a woman, a mother, a revolutionary fighter, now living in Santa Monica, who used to wear a machine gun as a part of her JOB! To read the life story of a contemporary, of my generation, who has done so much, lived with such vivacity and courage and passion is truly an inspiration. To see the USA through the eyes of someone who fought against a cruel, murderous, ugly dictator, only to have a right wing American president, Ronald Reagan, use all the power within his reach to destroy the fruits of her people's struggle for democracy-- is eye-opening. Gioconda Belli weaves a story of intrigue, power, politics and sensuality that had me turning the pages like, usually, only the best potboiler fiction novel can do. It is a testimony to women's rights the way she functioned as a Sandinista revolutionary while bearing three children, raising a family and taking down the Somoza dictatorship, becoming an award winning writer-poet and traveling the world as a diplomat-representative of the revolutionary government she played a major role of bringing into power. As an activist writer, publisher in the USA, (of the website opednews) this book came to me as an amazing wake-up call, demonstrating the many ways a people who are fighting a corrupt, malignant government and its leaders can tackle the challenge of taking control of the nation. We in the USA who are fighting against those who are unraveling the constitution and democracy would do well to read and learn from Gioconda Belli. The steps she took as she became more politicized, more involved in the fight against the rich and powerful who would strip the rights and freedoms from her people are steps many of us have just begun to take. The courage and sacrifice she describes in her own life and the lives of her "companeros" is inspiring. Reading about her experiences meeting with other revolutionaries, how different nations actually celebrate them and their fights for freedom, was a real eye-opener. Why doesn't the US honor the heroic men and women with the courage to take on the worst dictators? Because, too often, we are supporting and funding them? This must end. It is time that we invite the leaders of revolutions from all over the world to the US. Of course, for that reality to happen, there must be a revolution of some sort in the US-- one that rejects corporatism and the run-amuck out of control capitalism that the USA's lamestream media have sold us over the years. While this is a book, that for me, was inspiring at many levels, one should not forget that Belli is an award winning poet and writer with many international awards for her work. The book is a pleasure to read. It will make you laugh and bring you tears of joy and sadness. It did for me. The book was not one I'd have ever picked up

The Political Made Personal

Belli's extraordinary memoir brings intimacy, emotional sensitivity, and depth to the story of Nicaragua's revolution. Whether she is giving birth in a squalid clinic, exiled from her country, learning to shoot, being dropped from a helicopter - in high heels - or negotiating with Fidel, we never forget she and the other revolutionaries are all people struggling to live, to love, to raise their children, care for their parents, and save their country all at once. Never before have I read a political memoir that told me what I wanted to know about revolution - not just the events and the speeches, the strategies and the fights, but how it felt, how one lived it, what kind of person Fidel was, Ortega, and the rest. Belli tells the tale with all its drama, but doesn't leave out the profoundly complex personal texture.

My Favorite Book in a Decade

A breathtakingly beautiful, poetic book about a woman -- a Nicaraguan mother, an artist, an activist -- whose love for freedom and her country, along with her own daring, take her on amazing adventures during the time of the overthrow of a brutal dictator...Her life and gorgeous writing make an extraordinary story...This is my favorite book in a decade -- heartfelt, passionate, dazzling, soaring personal memoir by an internationally renowned poet that will take your breath away.

The Power of Passion

The Power of Passion in Gioconda Belli's The Country Under My Skin The passions of womanhood must be God's greatest gift to humanity. If every woman would stand up and cultivate this treasure, each in her own way and with her individual talents, they could generate the inherent wisdom, power and goodness of their passions into peace. It is improbable that it could be world peace, and yet, the somehow more profound and practical inner peace is what those women would treasure most. If there was any doubt that this was possible, it was completely dispelled after journeying through Gioconda Belli's remarkable memoir, The Country Under My Skin. Hers is a tale of passion told through the guises of love, patriotism, motherhood, poetry and war. She introduces herself as the protected, educated daughter of respectable, bourgeois parents who would be more comfortable at a country club than at a secret meeting of subversive revolutionaries. But it is not long before she begins to reveal how she started as one and became the other. Each chapter tunnels further into what makes her tick, where those passions come from and how they develop from a wild, immature spark into the ardent beliefs and controlled fire of her immense passions. She may be intense, but nobody would accuse Belli of being wishy-washy. She takes us on a journey of self-discovery, showing us the important people and events that shaped her. From such notable personalities as Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and the flurry of other well known artists, writers, subversives, and politicians she introduces, to the intimate intricacies of her own family, Belli's characters help define her. In a haunting and poignant way, what she finds in herself reveals that which all women possess: the passions of womanhood. It is this passion that forces her to face the reality of life in Nicaragua and make a choice to accept the striking chasms between affluence and poverty, high ideals and censorship, freedom and tyranny. Once her choice has been made, there is no turning back: that would mean denying the possibilities of her dreams and those passions. Once she chooses the Sandanista cause, the framework for her tale has been laid. It is through the eyes of the revolutionary that we meet the mother, the poet, the friend, the lover and the woman that is Gioconda Belli. This unique perspective affords the reader the insight to understand how she can be all of these things without being a contradiction to herself. A young mother who puts her family at risk under a totalitarian dictatorship by joining the forces for change, it may seem a strange choice to make. In her view, the responsibility she had to her children was to provide for them a better world to live in than the one she inherited. In other words, how could she accept her position in society and ignore what she knew to be right? I don't think she could have and I am glad she didn't. This is the legacy of Belli: she leads by example.