From Publishers Weekly
Belli's upper-class Nicaraguan family was unsympathetic to the Somoza dictatorship, but would have been shocked to learn that their 20-something daughter was joining the underground Sandinistas even as she worked her bourgeois day job at a prestigious advertising agency. This lush memoir follows Belli from her sterile marriage to her first affair, from her first published poem to her first subversive act, and then through a series of exiles, until her triumphant return to her liberated homeland... only to face another struggle to liberate her own heart. The account is both intensely personal and informatively political. Belli (The Inhabited Woman) was no mere sympathizer or mistress to a compa¤ero but an active militant and strategist in her own right. She smuggled weapons, ran roadblocks, formed factions with revolutionary tendencies, argued strategy with Castro and represented liberated Nicaragua at Third World conferences from Moscow to Tripoli. An honest, insider's account of the very real debates surrounding this major revolution would be valuable in itself, but Belli offers more: a frank examination of her own struggle for love. Only after a series of disastrous affairs does she realize she must stop adjusting herself to how she expects her lover will react and just be herself. Next to the monumental upheavals of the Sandinistan revolution, such personal revelations may seem minor, but to Belli and her companeras, the battle was only half won if women were again relegated to mistress-to-the-mighty status. Belli shares her story in some 50 brief chapters, each subtitled to foreshadow content-an oddly reassuring format. 8 pages of photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Belli, author of the acclaimed novel The Inhabited Woman (1994), could have simply enjoyed the benefits of upper-class Nicaraguan life as a young wife and mother, but privileged domesticity could not contain her questing spirit. She soon launched a successful advertising career in Managua, found her soul mates among writers and revolutionaries, and became both a celebrated poet and a Sandinista, risking her life in her country's fight for freedom. Belli's dramatic and heroic story is an epic of liberation both personal and communal, and she chronicles her harrowing experiences with magnetic candor and lithe lyricism, sharing her insider's view of the Sandinistas' hard-won, tragically brief victory and the wrenching anguish of their annihilation thanks to Reagan and Bush and the Iran-Contra debacle. Motherhood and love affairs under fire, gun running and media work, poetry prizes and exile, and ceaseless combat against misogyny and despair, Belli's powerfully told story reveals the symbiotic give-and-take of body and soul, art and politics, and altruism and pragmatism that make up the human continuum. A tribute to beauty, valor, and justice, Belli's giving and clarion book is also an antidote to fear and apathy, and a reminder that freedom is always a work in progress. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“A poetic, penetrating and revelatory tale of love and war, literature and politics. . .lyrical, dramatic and incisive, Belli’s soulful self-portrait and paean to her beautiful, beleagured country is at once timely and timeless, tragic and life-affirming.” –The Chicago Tribune

“Love and revolution have rarely been so splendidly and provocatively intertwined than in this heretic memoir of a woman's sensual and intellectual voyage of self-discovery in Nicaragua.” –Ariel Dorfman

"Gioconda Belli's memoir reads better than a novel. It recounts her larger-than-life experiences as a revolutionary, lover, and mother with honesty, passion, intelligence and, above all, poetry. The Country Under My Skin is as much the story of Nicaragua as it is one extraordinary woman's dreams.” –Cristina Garcia

“The poet and novelist Gioconda Belli has written no ordinary memoir. This book is about American history, North and South; about power and the seeds of revolution; about one woman's life and choices entangled among many lives--and deaths--expended in the unkillable hope for human freedom and love. If her life seems romantic, she writes with the strength and clarity of a realist.” –Adrienne Rich

“Unravels [the] contradictions. . .all too common among powerful women–with characteristic candor and dignity. . .Often joyous, surprisingly fluid.” –Salon

“Engaging. . .When Belli speaks from the depths of her woman’s insight. . . her prose pierces the heart. . .A window to one woman’s extraordinary journey.” –San Antonio Express

“A surprisingly frank picture of the movement. . .Belli presents a complex picture, revealing the ego clashes and massive blunders as well as moments of incredible bravery under fire.” –Los Angeles Magazine

“Belli recalls with engaging candor the course of a life lived to the full. In its twist and turns, moments of danger followed by intense romantic encounters, Belli's memoir can resemble exuberant historical fiction. . A luminously written, always insightful account of one woman's encounter with personal and political liberation.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Gioconda Belli has had a unique place in modern Nicaraguan history. . . . [Her] progress through her various love affairs mirrors Nicaragua’s history during the same period. . . . Introduces us to an astute veteran of two eternal wars, one between the sexes and one that pits the world’s poor against its rich.” –The New York Review of Books

“A lush memoir.…both intensely personal and informatively political.…An honest, insider's account of the very real debates surrounding this major revolution would be valuable in itself, but Belli offers more: a frank examination of her struggle for love.” –Publishers Weekly

“A tribute to beauty, valor, and justice. Belli’s giving and clarion book is also an antidote to fear and apathy, and a reminder that freedom is always a work in progress.” –Booklist

“Romantic and engaging.” –Philadelphia City Paper




Review
?A poetic, penetrating and revelatory tale of love and war, literature and politics. . .lyrical, dramatic and incisive, Belli?s soulful self-portrait and paean to her beautiful, beleagured country is at once timely and timeless, tragic and life-affirming.? ?The Chicago Tribune

?Love and revolution have rarely been so splendidly and provocatively intertwined than in this heretic memoir of a woman's sensual and intellectual voyage of self-discovery in Nicaragua.? ?Ariel Dorfman

"Gioconda Belli's memoir reads better than a novel. It recounts her larger-than-life experiences as a revolutionary, lover, and mother with honesty, passion, intelligence and, above all, poetry. The Country Under My Skin is as much the story of Nicaragua as it is one extraordinary woman's dreams.? ?Cristina Garcia

?The poet and novelist Gioconda Belli has written no ordinary memoir. This book is about American history, North and South; about power and the seeds of revolution; about one woman's life and choices entangled among many lives--and deaths--expended in the unkillable hope for human freedom and love. If her life seems romantic, she writes with the strength and clarity of a realist.? ?Adrienne Rich

?Unravels [the] contradictions. . .all too common among powerful women?with characteristic candor and dignity. . .Often joyous, surprisingly fluid.? ?Salon

?Engaging. . .When Belli speaks from the depths of her woman?s insight. . . her prose pierces the heart. . .A window to one woman?s extraordinary journey.? ?San Antonio Express

?A surprisingly frank picture of the movement. . .Belli presents a complex picture, revealing the ego clashes and massive blunders as well as moments of incredible bravery under fire.? ?Los Angeles Magazine

?Belli recalls with engaging candor the course of a life lived to the full. In its twist and turns, moments of danger followed by intense romantic encounters, Belli's memoir can resemble exuberant historical fiction. . A luminously written, always insightful account of one woman's encounter with personal and political liberation.? ?Kirkus Reviews

?Gioconda Belli has had a unique place in modern Nicaraguan history. . . . [Her] progress through her various love affairs mirrors Nicaragua?s history during the same period. . . . Introduces us to an astute veteran of two eternal wars, one between the sexes and one that pits the world?s poor against its rich.? ?The New York Review of Books

?A lush memoir.?both intensely personal and informatively political.?An honest, insider's account of the very real debates surrounding this major revolution would be valuable in itself, but Belli offers more: a frank examination of her struggle for love.? ?Publishers Weekly

?A tribute to beauty, valor, and justice. Belli?s giving and clarion book is also an antidote to fear and apathy, and a reminder that freedom is always a work in progress.? ?Booklist

?Romantic and engaging.? ?Philadelphia City Paper

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
What is it that makes a revolutionary? Few lives are as dangerous, exciting, or spellbinding as that of Giocanda Belli: wife, mother, acclaimed poet and novelist, and former Sandinista activist who played a prominent role in the overthrow of Nicaragua's dictatorship in 1979. And in The Country Under My Skin, she has produced a remarkable page-turner of a memoir.

Born to an upper-class Nicaraguan family, Belli married a similarly privileged young man at the age of 18 and soon started a family. But she quickly became frustrated with her sheltered domestic life and her husband's melancholic spirit. Falling in with a group of artistic bohemians, Belli developed a sincere desire to do away with class privilege and improve life for the Nicaraguan people. This quest led her to join the Sandinista guerrillas, who were intent on wresting power from the tyranny of the Somoza regime.

Despite the quixotic nature of her calling, Belli was still a woman -- a wife and mother struggling to balance her vocation and her family. She writes of the challenges of working while pregnant; of her reluctance to leave her children in order to work; of the desperate measures she employed to maintain custody of her children after a bitter divorce; and of her passion for the handsome and powerful men she met.

Frightening and exhilarating, Belli's historic tale is an incredibly dramatic one. Readers will be well rewarded by this lucid and lyrical memoir of Nicaraguan history and of a life irrevocably changed by it. Winter 2002 Selection

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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 birthright 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 CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Belli's upper-class Nicaraguan family was unsympathetic to the Somoza dictatorship, but would have been shocked to learn that their 20-something daughter was joining the underground Sandinistas even as she worked her bourgeois day job at a prestigious advertising agency. This lush memoir follows Belli from her sterile marriage to her first affair, from her first published poem to her first subversive act, and then through a series of exiles, until her triumphant return to her liberated homeland... only to face another struggle to liberate her own heart. The account is both intensely personal and informatively political. Belli (The Inhabited Woman) was no mere sympathizer or mistress to a compa$ero but an active militant and strategist in her own right. She smuggled weapons, ran roadblocks, formed factions with revolutionary tendencies, argued strategy with Castro and represented liberated Nicaragua at Third World conferences from Moscow to Tripoli. An honest, insider's account of the very real debates surrounding this major revolution would be valuable in itself, but Belli offers more: a frank examination of her own struggle for love. Only after a series of disastrous affairs does she realize she must stop adjusting herself to how she expects her lover will react and just be herself. Next to the monumental upheavals of the Sandinistan revolution, such personal revelations may seem minor, but to Belli and her companeras, the battle was only half won if women were again relegated to mistress-to-the-mighty status. Belli shares her story in some 50 brief chapters, each subtitled to foreshadow content-an oddly reassuring format. 8 pages of photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 5) Forecast: With blurbs from feminists like Adrienne Rich and others like Salman Rushdie, this moving memoir is bound to attract browsers. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT - Edna Boardman

Belli, born 1949, came of age in Nicaragua at a time when the lines between rich and poor were sharply drawn, and when Somoza, one of the world's most corrupt dictators, ruled. The US supported dictators like this, and Belli and her compatriots knew they could expect little help from the north in their fight for an honest and equitable social and political system. As a young married woman, she joined the Sandinistas, the revolutionary movement that conspired to overthrow Samoza and those who benefited from his reign. Belli, who was educated in the US, writes a powerful, appealing memoir in which she tells of her activities as part of The Organization. In the 1960s and '70s, Belli served as liaison, fund-raiser, recruiter, driver, and gatherer of medicines to send to the guerrillas. She also learned military skills. Her story is replete with the vocabulary of revolution: guerrillas, safe houses, surveillance, rebels, clandestine communications, secret meetings, code names, torture, disappearance, the death of compatriots caught by the government. Yet her life was also that of Nicaragua's privileged class. She held white-collar jobs, relied on nannies to care for her babies (eventually four), enjoyed connections with highly placed persons (including Fidel Castro), lived in fine houses, had adequate food and clothing, could command transportation to both neighboring and distant countries, and exercised options when the going got rough. Throughout, she had a series of husbands and lovers. In 1987, she married Charlie Castaldi, an American correspondent for National Public Radio, and today lives in the US. Belli has written a literate, insightful book. She understands both the emotions thatdrove her personal life and the political ideologies of her time. The Sandinistas, she says, sought a more fair and equitable life for the people of her country and believed some form of socialism would deliver it. She had traveled in European communist countries, disliked the limitations on personal and economic freedoms she saw, and wanted none of it. The chapters, which are short and clearly dated, lend themselves well to pick-up reading. An excellent addition to women's literature and explorations of the Central American political movements during the Cold War years. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Random House, Anchor, 380p. illus. index., Ages 15 to adult.

Kirkus Reviews