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

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By: Gioconda Belli
(19 customer reviews)
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EDITORIAL REVIEW

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 in Managua in a world of country clubs and debutante balls; educated abroad; early marriage and motherhood. But in 1970, everything changed. Her growing dissatisfaction with domestic life, and a blossoming awareness of the social inequities in Nicaragua, led her to join the Sandinistas, then a burgeoning but still hidden organization. She would be involved with them over the next twenty years at the highest, and often most dangerous, levels.

Her memoir is both a revelatory insider’s account of the Revolution and a vivid, intensely felt story about coming of age under extraordinary circumstances. Belli writes with both striking lyricism and candor about her personal and political lives: about her family, her children, the men in her life; about her poetry; about the dichotomies between her birth-right and the life she chose for herself; about the failures and triumphs of the Revolution; about her current life, divided between California (with her American husband and their children) and Nicaragua; and about her sustained and sustaining passion for her country and its people.


From the Hardcover edition.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Publisher: Anchor
Pub. Date: 14th October 2003
Catalog: Book
Media: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 400
Ean: 9781400032167
Isbn: 1400032164

ABOUT THIS BOOK

USER REVIEWS

The Country Under My Skin Hypnotizes
~ Written on Jul 18, 2009. out of users found this review helpful.

The fabulous, passionate, and revolutionary women in my life were celebrating my birth on June 5 and perusing my library shelves when Brianna spotted Gioconda Belli's "The Inhabited Woman," one of my all-time favorite reads. For one who finds it near impossible to suspend disbelief long enough to become immersed in fiction, I totally succumbed to Belli's poetic and hypnotic storytelling in "The Inhabited Woman." My friend and I exchanged loving remembrances of it and our inability to put it down, each reading into the morning hours. Our enthusiasm was such that others joined the conversation. I related my disappointment several years ago in finding no English translation of Belli's memoir "The Country Under My Skin." Brianna had it! So, I am now reading it and just as in reading her fiction, I am caught, dare I say--hypnotized, in Belli's rich story telling. As I approach the September of my life and writing about my own revolution as an Indigenous woman of North America, it is exciting to read Belli's life and struggle in Nicaragua as told in this fine memoir. It has been acclaimed as an extraordinary memoir of love, passion, and revolution told with honesty, intelligence, and poetry. The timing is supremely fitting as I share the reading with my dear and strong sisters in the justice movement at a strife-filled time in so many lives among and around us. Gioconda Belli gives hope and inspiration in sharing her story.

A woman's life
~ Written on May 27, 2008. out of users found this review helpful.

Its a passionating history of a country and the impressing story of a woman's life. I like it. Its so real.

An easy-to-read, engaging primer on Nicaragua in the 70s and 80s
~ Written on Jan 2, 2008. 1 out of 1 users found this review helpful.

In preparation for a trip to Nicaragua, I picked up this book as my introduction to the country and let me tell you: it got under my skin, too. If you are interested in getting a flavor for what Nicaragua is like and where it his been in recent history, I highly recommend The Country Under My Skin. As mentioned in other reviews, this is a story of a woman, not a nation, and that is what, for me, kept the book interesting. Whenever the love stories lingered too long, she would always give the reader a socio-political context to the public events that were so intertwined with her private life.

I am not suggesting, however, that this is anything resembling a definitive history of the Sandinista struggle. Belli's love for Nicaragua and it's poor is infectious and easily transferred through her lyrical prose. Read this book. Fall in love. You can learn more later.

Honesty is the best quality
~ Written on Oct 23, 2007. out of 4 users found this review helpful.

Our book club enjoyed the discussion on politics which this feminist autobiography evoked, but shared no empathy with the author whose justification for being a member of the Sandanistas was unconvincing, allowing her to be judged as a promiscous, star-struck, thrill seeker motivated by the desire to shock and gain attention from her family by causing scandal within the upper echelons of Nicaraguan society. Honesty is the best quality of the writing style which used a journalistic approach rather than any poetic language.

beautiful
~ Written on Aug 31, 2007. out of users found this review helpful.

i savored this book for months before i finally allowed myself to read the final chapters. she writes so lyrically and with such passion and imagery, yet without an abundance of superflous words. i read this while traveling through nicaragua and enjoyed every word of it.

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