Laura Restrepo
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Laura Restrepo is one of the most skilled writers to emerge from Latin America since the days of the Latin American Boom. She was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1950 and after about 25 years she began to write her first serious works, mainly political columns. Her first fiction novel, Isle of Passion, is based on historical facts from Clipperton Island. This novel is believed to be the beginning of her career as a writer.
Laura Restrepo technically began writing when she was nine years old. Although it may have only been a story about peasant people it was the beginning to her journey into a career of writing. It took Laura 25 years to begin writing seriously because of her father’s death. She began writing in love, memory, and just to get the feeling of being close to him again. She returned to Colombia after 3 years in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and began writing for Semana, a magazine, in the national and international politics section. During this time she traveled to different places including Grenada to report on the invasion and to the Nicaragua-Honduras border to report on the war between the Sandinistas and the Contras. During her time working for Semana she met Gabriel García Márquez. Although feeling lucky to be acquainted with him she also criticized him for his writing style of magic realism. Over time she became the political editor of Semana and wrote about ongoing peace negotiations. Restrepo voiced her opinions loudly over the failing peace treaties and the conflict that was going and received death threats and was forced into a 6 year exile in Mexico. Many of the investigations she did ended up as plots or ideas in many of her novels
Her first novel was Isle of Passion which uses her normal style of investigative journalism and fiction to create a sense of wonder while it is being read. She wrote this novel while she was in Mexico, seeing as she missed Colombia so much she decided to begin a story. This novel is a story about real people with the hint of Restrepo bending the truth at moments. Leopard in the Sun was Restrepo’s second novel. This novel started with a story that Restrepo had been sent to cover about why two families were killing each other. Eventually she finds out they were involved in the drug cartels in Colombia. She says “she never used the word ‘drugs’ in the novel, because she is convinced that “all readers read between the lines.”" Dulce Compañia is a non-traditional Laura Restrepo novel. She uses religious beings in this novel when in fact she never had formal religious training in her lifetime. Dulce Compañia is also a novel with a comedic tinge which is again a different style she is using. Restrepo has won several awards for this novel.
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