Why read The Country Under My Skin?

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

Book description

Lives don't get much more quixotic or passionately driven than that of the Nicaraguan revolutionary Gioconda Belli. She may have been educated by nuns and dazzled all as a well-heeled society girl, but Gioconda lifted her "guilt of privilege" by joining the Sandinistas in her twenties, to serve and then…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Country Under My Skin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Theresa Keeley

Author

What prompted an upper-class, Catholic mother to become an armed revolutionary in Nicaragua?

The poet and writer Gioconda Belli shares her journey, including her time living in exile and her later break with the Sandinistas. She details how her experiences differed from her comrades because of her status as a woman and a mother and how they often underestimated and mistreated her because of her gender. Although Belli does not center faith as her primary motivation, she often references her Catholic upbringing and schooling.

From Theresa's list on Catholics who joined revolutionary movements in Central America.