Gioconda Belli awarded Carlos Fuentes Prize, continues Voice of Resistance
Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli has been โคhonored with the Carlos Fuentes prize, recognizing her important โcontribution to universal literature. The jury,comprised of historian rodrigo Martรญnez Baracs,writers Ana Clavel and Natalia Toledo,author Claudia Piรฑeiro,and poet luis Garcรญa montero,lauded the “link of intimate reflection and shared memory” presentโ in her work.
Belli’s early poetry debuted in Theโข Literary Press, a cultural weekly affiliated with the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, a media outlet targeted and ultimately confiscated byโ the current regime of โฃDaniel Ortega. In 2023, Ortega revoked Belli’s Nicaraguan nationality,โข alongside those of approximately one hundred other writers, intellectuals, โjournalists, and dissenting voices, includingโ fellowโ exiled writer and Cervantes Prize laureate, Sergio Ramรญrez.
A former member ofโค the Sandinista Nationalโข Liberation Front (FSLN), the guerrilla group that ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Belli experienced a first โexile in Mexico and Costa Rica between 1975 and โข1979 due to her opposition to the regime. She won โคthe Casa deโข las Amรฉricas Prize โin โข1978 for her poetry โcollection Line of Fire. Following the revolution,she held various positions within theโข Sandinista government and โฃpublished three further poetry collections in the late 1980s: Thunder and Rainbows,Insurgent Love,and from Eva’s Rib. Her work is noted for its explorationโ of โฃeroticism, sensuality, and the female โขbody.
“You don’t know โwhen you write what it will mean to express at a certain momentโค what is new,” Belli explained in a recent interview. “My novelty, I think, was โคto speak as aโ woman from the โฃfemaleโ body and celebrate my sex and my wayโ ofโ seeing the world, no โขlonger as an object, but as the subject of a particular emotional and sensory drive and different from โฃthe male gaze that had โฃmarked being female.” She further stated that “Being a woman andโค celebrating every letter of being one was an act of rebellion.”
Established in 2012 in memory of Carlosโ fuentes, the Carlos Fuentes โขPrize recognizes authors who enrichโค global literature through their poetry, novels, essays, and stories. Previous recipients include Elena Poniatowska, Luis Garcรญa Montero, โคMario vargas Llosa, and Sergio ramรญrez.
Belli is considered one of the most widely read Latin American authors in both America and Europe. Her futuristic novel Waslala โ has โขsold one million copies in Germany and 400,000โ in Spain, with numerous editions published throughout โLatin America. Her most recent publication โis A Silence Full of Murmurs.
Despite her exile, Belli remains actively engaged in both her โขliterary work and her political advocacy, consistently speaking out against Ortega’s “dictatorship” in nicaragua.โค In a recent opinion piece publishedโ titled โ Nicaraguaโข Amputated, she reflected on the cruelty of her โcurrent โคexile โand the uncertainty of ever returning to her home, which she describes as being slowly reclaimed by nature. She characterizes this period as “the exile of resistance, of committing to life everyโฃ day and turning adaptation to a newโฃ reality intoโฃ daily triumph.”