Gioconda Belli —The Queen of Hearts
By Adriana Lopez -- Críticas, 11/15/2006
"A true force of nature." That's how the Nicara-guan-born novelist, poet, and activist Gioconda Belli (b. 1948) was described by her U.S. agent Bonnie Nadell when asked about her client's essence. Nadell first met Belli in 1997, after she read Belli's 1988 novel about a privileged and independent-thinking woman coming into political consciousness in Central America. A best seller overseas, the book was translated into English by Curbstone Press as The Inhabited Woman (La mujer habitada, Salamandra, 2003). Belli's name was internationally recognized for her daring poetry and fiction, but the U.S. release of her revealing memoir, El país bajo mi piel (Vintage Español, 2002; The Country Under My Skin, Knopf, 2002)—about her extraordinary life as a member of Nicaragua's Sandinista movement, not to mention her love affairs—put her on the map as one of the most exciting writers in the country.
| Books by Belli |
Writing overtakes Belli, like a kind of possession. El pergamino de la seducción began as a writing exercise that she couldn't stop. A modern look into the past through the eyes of a young woman named Lucía (reminiscent of an adolescent Belli), the book features a plot structure that is Belli's way of showing how society has somewhat advanced in its treatment of women. "Juana had to confront her father, her husband, her son. She was a paradigmatic case. They all accused her of being mad, but it was her par excellence they called madness," Belli tells Críticas. "Her personality was her weakness." The more she researched Juana's life through books from the time and modern studies like Bethany Aram's groundbreaking defense of Juana's sanity and mistreatment, La Reina Juana (Queen Juana, Marcial Pons, 2001), the more appalled she was at the gross distortion made of this woman's character.
"I think anyone, especially any woman who tries to rise above the middle ground, is eventually attacked one way or the other." If anyone has tried to rise above, it's been Belli, and it hasn't been without controversy.
Rebelde with a CauseFor those following Belli's dramatic life and her rising literary fame, her untamed auburn tresses have become her signature (now that she's shed her military boots and fatigues), one that has made her a rock star of sorts, immediately letting one know when la Gioconda has entered the room.
The big, choppy mane is evocative of another literary lioness, the late Susan Sontag, with her famous skunk-like stripe rising from her full black hair. Similar to Sontag, Belli is unabashedly visionary and political by nature—though Belli is probably more in tune with her feminine power of seduction. Like Sontag, Belli has also had her critics—especially among the opposite sex—who have disapproved of her brazen behavior every step of the way. And just like Sontag, this resistance has only fueled Belli's fire even more.
Take for instance when she was a burgeoning poet living in Managua in November 1970. Belli, 22 and already married, was working at an advertising agency. There she met "The Poet," as she would refer to him in her memoirs, with whom she had an affair—and other great bohemian thinkers who would inspire her to join the revolution. This lover encouraged her to publish six of her erotic poems in the literary supplement of La Prensa Literaria, Nicaragua's esteemed cultural journal. Belli's works, however, were different from most traditional romantic compositions wherein women are the objects of beauty and pleasure. Men inspired the sensations in these poems. This didn't sit well with traditional Latin American society, which had not yet been exposed to feminism or women like Belli.
"While important poets and literary critics exalted my boldness and 'originality,' my family and their friends were shocked," says Belli. "The reaction came from my social milieu then: my aunts and uncles were horrified, and at parties I could see everyone looking at me as if I were from another planet." Her then-husband forbid her to publish anything without his approval. Pure Belli, she refused.
At that moment, Belli was at a crossroads that would determine her direction for the rest of her life: accept the limitations society imposed on her for being a woman or pay the price for daring to do what she thought was right. "I chose to pay the price," says Belli. And it was worth it. Two years later she published in Managua her first book of poems—in all its sensual splendor—entitled Sobre la grama ("On the Grass," Colección Indesa, 1972; reprinted in El ojo de la mujer, Anama Ediciones, 1994). It went on to win Nicaragua's most prestigious literary award at the time, the Mariano Fiallos Gil from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (National Public University of Nicaragua).
Joining the RevolutionThis was just the beginning of Belli's personal and political rebellion. Reading Karl Marx and Betty Freidan, among other heady thinkers, Belli was going though an intense transformation as her country was breaking free from the greedy hands of Anastasio Somoza's dictatorial rule during the 1970s. The winds of social change were blowing through her hair and her tiny country's lush greenery. Belli wanted adventure, even if it was dangerous.
| See also our author profile: Isol—Playing Seriously, Like Kids Do |
Belli became the party's international press liaison in 1982 and the director of State Communications in 1984. Doing that work she met her current and third husband, Charles Castaldi, an American NPR journalist she married in 1987. Belli now divides her time between Santa Monica, CA—where she lives with her husband and three daughters—and Managua, where her son resides.
Living One's ConscienceUp until now Belli has managed to fight for a bloody revolution and traveled the world for exile and espionage. She has been swept up in head-over-heels romances and raised four children. All of this while creating literature in private. She has published four novels, one memoir, and six books of poetry. She has contributed to several poetry collections and written a children's book—the English translation of her children's book, El taller de las mariposas (The Butterfly Workshop, Editorial Anamá, 1995), was published by Europa books in May. Belli's work has been translated into numerous languages. Among her awards is the prestigious Casas de las Américas Prize in 1978, and, in 2003, she was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for her memoir.
When we spoke to Belli in mid-September she was up to her old rhythm, busy balancing her writing life with her political activism, traveling back and forth to Managua during the current Nicaraguan presidential campaign. This, in between juggling her second daughter Melissa's wedding, new twin granddaughters, the death of her husband's father, and the U.S. publicity campaign for El pergamino de la seducción.
In an interview Belli gave to Spain's newspaper Cinco Días, which ran with the headline, "All Women Are Juana the Mad," Belli gave a nod to Flaubert with his Madame Bovary and questioned historians' interpretations of sanity. In response to questions about a famous story about Juana knocking on Philip's door an entire night wanting to be let in, Belli replies to the journalist, "Well? Men kill their rivals and nobody considers them crazy."
Belli's vindication of Juana's life is justice served to all women in history. Perhaps Belli wants to be sure her own story is never misconstrued. When we asked Belli what she thinks after she's been critiqued for her actions, she responds, "When one is committed to being who one is and living according to one's conscience, there is no choice but to take these criticisms as part of the choice one has made. It is hard sometimes to deal with rejection and incomprehension, but it is a lesser evil than choosing to renounce oneself."
La mujer habitada 
Waslala 
El país bajo mi piel 
El taller de las mariposas | Author Information |
| Adriana Lopez, a regular contributor to Críticas, is a freelance writer and Latina magazine's book columnist. |
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