For Gioconda Belli, a woman's sexuality and female identity are inseparable from an expansive and nurturing love of the world. In her poetry, the longing for a society in which people construct a future together is animated by an inextinguishable erotic, maternal, and transcendental loving desire. The poetry in FROM EVE'S RIB, a selection that includes Belli's early as well as recent work, is revolutionary in that it links an intense eroticism with the insurrectionary spirit of the Nicaraguan people.

"Her poetry [is] at once extremely sensual and politically direct...a kind of public love-poetry that [comes] closer...to expressing the passion of Nicaragua than anything I ever heard." --Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile (Penguin, 1987)

"Her lessons in eroticism and her deeply engaged social conscience and her feminism, her historical perspective and her personal, passionate imagination have marked her poems with the indelible hand print of originality." --American Book Review

"From Eve's Rib" is a collection of poetry by Gioconda Belli of Nicaragua. Her work has been translated into English by Steven F. White. This is a bilingual edition, with the Spanish originals and English versions on facing pages.

Belli's voice is passionate, lusty, sensual, tender, and politically aware. Many of her poems are woman-centered; she writes about menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, physical love, and pride in being a woman. Many poems deal with the Nicaraguan revolution and its aftermath. One of the best poems in the collection, "The Dream Bearers," is a prophetic poem of hope in which Belli celebrates those who dream "not of the world's destruction, / but of building a world of butterflies / and nightingales." Also memorable is "Conjunction," in which Belli reflects on the women writers of past generations. This is a fine collection of poetry that I enthusiastically recommend, particularly to those with an interest in women's studies or Latin American literature.

i have to do a history project and it requiers two poems from nicaragua. This is the only place that i've found some and I can't see them. please help.

Few are the books that come along to grip us in their merciless stories. The inhabited woman is a wonderful book of love and war, passion and death, spirituality and beliefs. Lavinia is a woman for the 21st century. Bravo to Gioconda Belli for a most inspiring and haunting tale of the power of our own destiny!! Lavinia is a modern day heroine! I love this book! It ranks high on the list of keepers and most definately a book to pass along to generations to come.

The Inhabited Woman is a thought-provoking book that takes you on an adventure you won't want to end. Lavinia is a Nicaraguan architect "inhabited" by the spirit of Itza, an indigenous warrior killed centuries ago while fighting for her country. With Itza in her blood, Lavinia finds herself torn between her "normal" upper-class existence and her sense of social responsibility, which, together with her love for the revolutionary Felipe, sends her into a new world of danger and heroism. Analysing and challenging social norms of class and gender, The Inhabited Woman is an excellent combination of theory and story that entraps you so that you won't want to put it down.

Gioconda Belli is one of Nicaragua's most highly regarded writers. Her poetry and fiction have been published in Spain, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Greece and Turkey. She currently lives in Los Angeles. THE INHABITED WOMAN was awarded "Best Literary Work of the Year" by the Union of German Publishers and Editors.

"[It] is a passionate story of love, courage, solidarity and death, where reality and legend blend harmoniously. The lives of the characters are intertwined with the destiny of a country and the struggle of a people for dignity. There is so much truth in this book, that it is impossible for the reader to remain indifferent. This is a story that needed to be told and Belli does it with talent." --Isabel Allende

"THE INHABITED WOMAN is engrossing, reading like an action adventure...[it] opens on a stunning, magical note..." --The Daily News

"THE INHABITED WOMAN revitalizes two literary genres that in recent years seemed to have lost their grips on the imagination of new writers and, as a matter of course, readers-magic realism and social realism." --The Hartford Courant

After almost a year of looking for this book I finally read it. This book is great it's about this beautiful archited named Lavina she is very independent and strong. She live in Nicaragua, in a time when rebellion was dangerous. She risk her life by entering this malisha group and she also falls in love. This story is passionate and very sad. Their is a ghost of this warrier women living in Lavina's tree, she studies her and goes into her mind, thoughts and dreams.

This is a unique story that intertwines the struggle and bravery of past warriors with the ones of today. For anyone who loves to read a book about human passion and love. For anyone who can relate to the feeling of belonging to a culture and being able to die for ideals, a country and family, will definitely find in this book the the inner rebel that many of us have against unjustice and abuse.

This very unique story transports us into a world of magic, nature, and gypsies; giving us a small tempting taste of something to be experienced only throughout these pages. The reader will seep through the book in a most fantastic adventure living the life of Sofia, a young Central American woman in whom many other women will be able to recognize themselves.

A long self indulgent memoir by a woman whose life was focused on her own "ideals" and ego needs. Like many memoirs I distrust her memory for all the many events and conversations that make up this book. She sacrifices her children; she glorifies her sexuality; she is the center of her universe. A totally corrupt human being, justifying her lack of moral compass with her professed love of " liberty and freedom ". PSHAW!

The Power of Passion in Gioconda Belli's
The Country Under My Skin

The passions of womanhood must be God's greatest gift to humanity. If every woman would stand up and cultivate this treasure, each in her own way and with her individual talents, they could generate the inherent wisdom, power and goodness of their passions into peace. It is improbable that it could be world peace, and yet, the somehow more profound and practical inner peace is what those women would treasure most. If there was any doubt that this was possible, it was completely dispelled after journeying through Gioconda Belli's remarkable memoir, The Country Under My Skin.

Hers is a tale of passion told through the guises of love, patriotism, motherhood, poetry and war. She introduces herself as the protected, educated daughter of respectable, bourgeois parents who would be more comfortable at a country club than at a secret meeting of subversive revolutionaries. But it is not long before she begins to reveal how she started as one and became the other. Each chapter tunnels further into what makes her tick, where those passions come from and how they develop from a wild, immature spark into the ardent beliefs and controlled fire of her immense passions. She may be intense, but nobody would accuse Belli of being wishy-washy.

She takes us on a journey of self-discovery, showing us the important people and events that shaped her. From such notable personalities as Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and the flurry of other well known artists, writers, subversives, and politicians she introduces, to the intimate intricacies of her own family, Belli's characters help define her. In a haunting and poignant way, what she finds in herself reveals that which all women possess: the passions of womanhood. It is this passion that forces her to face the reality of life in Nicaragua and make a choice to accept the striking chasms between affluence and poverty, high ideals and censorship, freedom and tyranny. Once her choice has been made, there is no turning back: that would mean denying the possibilities of her dreams and those passions. Once she chooses the Sandanista cause, the framework for her tale has been laid.

It is through the eyes of the revolutionary that we meet the mother, the poet, the friend, the lover and the woman that is Gioconda Belli. This unique perspective affords the reader the insight to understand how she can be all of these things without being a contradiction to herself. A young mother who puts her family at risk under a totalitarian dictatorship by joining the forces for change, it may seem a strange choice to make. In her view, the responsibility she had to her children was to provide for them a better world to live in than the one she inherited. In other words, how could she accept her position in society and ignore what she knew to be right? I don't think she could have and I am glad she didn't.

This is the legacy of Belli: she leads by example. Not that every debutante should pick up an AK-47 and support armed resistance for a cause, but that each woman should find her passion and use that strength to power her dreams and actions for a better future. Her story is one of conflict: the external forces of war and the internal turmoil of choices amid the stark realities of life. This inner struggle exposes the most tender, vulnerable side of the warrior. In the stories of her three marriages, her four children, and the several lovers in between, there is a moving honesty in her voice that is unafraid of critique or of other people's values. She may question her motives and tenacity, but in her effort to resolve these forces, we see our own choices and cannot condemn hers.

It is this very honesty that allows us to accept her choices and not judge her actions. Through her rich language and haunting descriptions we come to feel her longings, understand her not just as a revolutionary and poet, but also in a more complete way, as a woman. This transformation does not follow any plot or storyline. It is how we discover ourselves in her words. In the most haunting passage of her tale, she leaves the cerebral world of thought and logic behind to describe how she felt after having chosen to terminate a pregnancy:

"I still remember the emptiness I felt on the flight home to Nicaragua, like a gutted house with only its façade left standing. For many years I cried over what could have been. I suffered for every woman who has ever found herself torn by life-or-death decisions, decisions that are our right, but that forever leave a bomb crater in our hearts, a disaster zone where the ghost of a child wanders, laughing the laughter that never was, forever gazing at us wistfully for the life we denied it."

These are the words of anguish. They are the personal, lonely torment of her choice. In the true spirit of art, she transcends her own words and is inspired to channel the
ineffability of emotion. The ability to infuse words with the feelings and passions that encompass her is her greatest gift, to herself and her readers.

The author of four novels and several collections of poetry, Gioconda Belli encapsulates the power and passions of womanhood. The Country Under My Skin, subtitled "a memoir of love and war" is far more than that. It is the portrait of a woman whose choices and determination exceed the expectations of her position, her gender, and herself. What she has accomplished in those reminiscences is nothing short of exceptional and has provided a guide for personal growth, intimate introspection, sublime description, and intense integrity that will serve as a role model for all women wishing to capture and empower themselves with the force of their own passions.