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The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

Award-winning poet Giocanda Belli to speak on campus

Award winning poet, journalist, novelist and former guerilla fighter Giocanda Belli will give a free writing lecture on Tuesday, May 5 at City College’s Fe Bland Forum.

The School of Modern Languages, the local chapter of the Hispanic Studies honor society Sigma Delta Mu, and the editorial Cengage at City College have come together to invite Belli to speak at Fe Bland Forum. After the talk the City College Bookstore will offer a book signing and refreshments.

“The books are already available at the bookstore,” said Prof. Francisco Rodriguez, one of the project’s initiators.

Belli is considered by many to be one of the 100 most important poets of the 20th century. Her Spanish writing has been translated into 14 different languages.

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More than 30 years ago, Belli struggled, armed, against the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua until she was forced into exile in Mexico from 1975 to 1979. Three years later, she was appointed Nicaragua’s director of State Communications and the Sandinista National Liberation Front’s international press liaison.

In 1987, Belli married the American journalist Charles Castaldi. Since 1990, she has lived both in Santa Monica, California, and the capital city of Nicaragua, Managua.

“She talks constantly about Nicaragua as a problem,” Rodriguez said. Belli opposes Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra’s government, while she contributes to the improvement of life in the Central American republic, he said.

Belli’s most recent novel is “Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand.” Here, the Biblical Eve is the protagonist in the retelling of the story of creation from “The Apocrypha” and the Bible. “The Apocrypha” is a collection of texts with Biblical content that weren’t included as Holy Scripture because of questionable authenticity.

“Her novels always have female protagonists,” said Instructor Juan Casillas Nuñez, another one of the project’s initiators at City College.

In Belli’s parable, Adam and Eve discover the world and Eve discusses philosophical topics with the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

The title “Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand” alludes to Eve holding a fig fruit, because there is no apple in this story, Nuñez said.

“Belli is trying to clear Eve as a symbol of sin,” said Miguel Arana, president of the Sigma Delta Mu chapter at City College.

Belli is challenging the Bible’s view that women are subordinate to men, Arana said, as well as introducing some evolutionary theory in the story about the first human beings.

“She makes a link between the Biblical creationism and Darwin,” Arana said.

Belli’s speech, which will be in English, is scheduled at 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. May 5 at Fe Bland Forum on West Campus. There is no admission fee.

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