The Country Under My Skin- A Memoir of Love and War By Gioconda Belli

I stumbled across this book whilst browsing Amazon.co.uk for books on Nicaragua. The Country Under My Skin is the the autobiography of Gioconda Belli, renowned Poet, novelist and a former member of the Sandinista Government. What is striking about Belli in the first instance is her bourgeois upbringing and her journey to the Sandinista movement. As a member of "Nicaraguan pampered high society", a frank admission by the author, Belli could be forgiven for living a life of blissful ignorance. To her enormous credit, Belli chose not to do so. She joined the underground resistance movement the Sandinista fighting the dictatorship of US backed Somoza, upon which she encountered many other revolutionaries who not only became a second family but in many cases lovers. Belli's love life is intertwined with her revolutionary life, in fact the two can be described as inseparable. Her description of the US government's support of the Contras is intriguing but also her own disillusionment with her own Sandinista Government is worth noting. What follows is how Belli fell in love the revolutionary life but also how she fell out with the Saninista after they gained power and the country was plunged into a crippling civil war. The Country Under My Skin displays a hope of a better time and a distinctly more optimistic time.



Available from all good book shops and some rubbish ones to.