Gioconda Belli, a globally renowned author, returns to bookstores with a work that delves into the complex relationship between a mother and her daughter. But this book goes further, addressing topics deeply tied to her journey: the Nicaraguan revolution, guerrilla warfare, political exile, and the shattered dreams of an entire generation. A timeless story, ideal for a co-production between Latin America and Spain, combining drama, history, and universal emotions.
Penélope, a Nicaraguan woman in exile, is an editor who arrives in Madrid to deal with the inheritance and belongings of her mother, Valeria, also exiled in Spain, who has just passed away. This brief visit turns into an indefinite stay when the COVID-19 pandemic closes borders, trapping her in the family home in the Sierra de Guadarrama. During the lockdown, Penélope tries to continue with her goal of traveling to Madrid while confronting loneliness and the memory-laden atmosphere in Valeria’s house.
Her mother was a strong, enigmatic, and revolutionary woman who abandoned her family’s privileges to join the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua in the 1970s. She was a recognized commander and a passionate idealist who fought fierce battles against the Somoza dictatorship. After the revolutionary triumph, she worked tirelessly for the ideals of equality and social justice. However, as Daniel Ortega transformed Sandinism into a new dictatorship, Valeria fell into deep disillusionment, eroding her identity and breaking the foundations of her revolutionary faith. In her later years, Valeria retired to Spain, where she found refuge and late love with Alberto, a Spanish architect, trying to forget some of the most traumatic events of her life.
During the confinement, Penélope explores the objects and corners of the house, immersing herself in her mother’s past and recalling fragments of her life. Valeria shared how she stole weapons and money to fund the guerrillas and how she lost Penélope’s father in an ambush. Penélope finds a fake book containing photographs of a baby, raising doubts about whether Valeria hid a deeper secret, perhaps an unknown daughter or a lost family story. These discoveries force Penélope to confront her own childhood and youth memories, intertwining admiration and resentment towards a mother seemingly more committed to the revolution than to her daughter.
Simultaneously, Penélope relives her own struggles. She also experienced revolutionary fervor in 2018 during protests against Ortega in Nicaragua. Penélope joined demonstrations with her students at the National University, where she worked as a professor, and endured the horrors of violent clashes and repression. Ernesto, a colleague with whom she shares an ambivalent relationship, played a key role in helping Penélope and her peers escape a night of gunfire at the university. Despite Ernesto offering her support and love, Penélope has never been able to fully commit, maintaining a relationship based on companionship and need rather than passion or romantic ideals.
Aware of the sacrifices and failures that defined her mother’s life, Penélope also explores her own fears and contradictions, the complexity of her independence, and her decision not to become a mother—something Valeria always disapproved of, despite experiencing her struggles as both a mother and an individual. Despite believing it impossible, Penélope comes to understand and forgive her mother, even with the secrets and unanswered questions left behind.
RELEVANT FACTS: Un silencio lleno de murmullos is a profound exploration of mother-daughter relationships and the weight of personal and collective history. Revolutionary adventures, loves, and losses create an intimate and tragic portrait of two women marked by ideals and wounds that haunt them even in death.
It is the latest novel by the multi-award-winning and globally recognized author Gioconda Belli, in which parallels with her life can be found, acknowledged even by the writer herself, who had her daughters in mind during the novel’s development.
Critics and reviews say:
“The story of a metamorphosis, of the deconstruction and reconstruction of a person, an identity, but also the reconstruction of a family history seeking the author’s origins, roots that reach into time and the land.” – La Vanguardia.
“Belli is one of those Latin American roars that awaken every so often. With commitment and light.” – El Mundo.
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV series, Miniseries, Film, TV Film.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.
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