Laura Restrepo

Laura Restrepo
Occupation	Novelist
Genre	Fiction

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. After about 25 years she began to write her first serious works, mainly political columns. In 1968 she became a literature professor at the National University. Years later she left teaching and became a part of the revolution. She started in Colombia then traveled to Spain and Argentina where she took part in the underground resistance of the military dictatorship. 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. In 2004 she became the director of the Institute of Culture and Tourism in Bogotá. She resigned soon after she received the Alfaguara Prize for Delirium.

Early Life

Laura Restrepo was born in 1950, in Bogotá, Colombia. She was the older of two daughters. Her grandfather was completely self-educated but still managed to learn six languages. Her father was very similar except he actually did go to school but left at the age of 13 to work. He became a businessman and enjoyed traveling. Although he believed in education, he thought it should be learned by experience rather than traditional schooling. According to Restrepo, her father would take her, her mother, Helen, and her sister, Carmen, everywhere he went. They went by car due to his hatred of flying. They never stopped long enough for her and her sister to attend a full year of school. Once she went to a public school in California for only one day because her father took the family somewhere else the next day. When she was around ten years old her formal education consisted of six months at a ceramics night school in Denmark. When she and her family went to Madrid the school did not accept her because she failed the admission tests for arithmetic, grammar, sewing, and embroidery, which were considered requirements. So instead she followed a flamenco guitar teacher in which she lacked in guitar skills. No matter what happened her father still took the family everywhere he could. Restrepo mentioned in an interview that he father brought them to visit museums, theaters, ruins, and to climb volcanoes and watch the geysers. Furthermore, he made them listen to composers such as Bartók, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. By the time she was 14 she had read several books but still did not know the full multiplication table.

When she was 15 and moved back into Colombia, she had to work extremely hard to earn a bachelor’s degree since she had not taken required subjects. For weeks on end she and her father studied to extremes and a few months later she received her diploma. This was the first time in her history that a member of her family on her father’s side received a diploma. Soon after she got her diploma she enrolled at the University of the Andes, Colombia. In her sophomore year in college, at the age of 16, she was accepted to be a literature teacher where she ran from her morning college classes to her afternoon teaching classes. The students were all older than her and taught her a lesson that changed her life: “that beyond the nuclear family and the land of wonders that is high culture, there lay a whole universe to be explored that was broad and remote, fierce and exciting.” When she decided to explore that world she cut ties with her father and never saw him again because a few years afterwards he died. She gave up her teaching job and joined the revolution and entered the life of politics. She began in Colombia then, for a few years, she joined the Socialist Workers Party in Spain, then soon went to Argentina for four years where she was part of the underground resistance that opposed the military dictatorship. After three years with the Socialist Workers Party in Madrid she became a journalist.

Later Life

Laura Restrepo graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of the Andes, Colombia and finished post-graduate in political science. Since she is an important writer, political activist, and journalist many political forums and universities, such as Cornell University, ask her to guest speak. They ask for her knowledge of Colombia’s politics, including guerrilla factions pushing Colombia to the verge of a possible civil war. Her novels are widely used in academic institutions for courses ranging from humanities to social sciences. Restrepo has a son from her first marriage. She is also teaching two months every year at the University of Seville. When she is not teaching, she is usually writing and speaking at academic institutions or forums.

Works

• Story of a Fascination (Historia de un Entusiasmo) (1986)
• Isle of Passion (Isla de la pasión) (1989)
• The Cows Eat Spaghetti (Las vacas comen espaguetis) (1989) (for children)
• Leopard in the Sun (El Leopardo al Sol: Novela) (1993)
• The Angel of Galilea (El Angel de Galilea) (1995)
• Sweet Company (Dulce Compania: Novela) (1996)
• The Dark Bride (La Novia Oscura: Novela) (1999) A journalist investigates a small Colombian town populated by mainly “oil riggers and the prostitutes who service them.” The journalist interviews some of the townspeople of Tora to learn about Sayonara, a well-known prostitute who is the daughter of a white man and a Guahibo Indian woman. She is in charge of La Catunga, the place where employees of the Tropical Oil Company “visit” prostitutes. Sayonara falls in love with two workers—Sacramento, whom she loves only as a brother, and Payanes as a lover. However, Payanes is married and Sacramento wants to save Sayonara from prostitution. Her love story surfaces through the townspeople and the journalistic style that the narrator takes.
• A Tale of the Dispossessed (La Multitud Errante: Novela) (2001) Set in Tora, Colombia, an unnamed narrator works in a convent sheltering refugees. She offers room and board to one of the men, named Three Sevens, and falls in love with him. However, she must compete with the woman Three Sevens is searching for—Matilde Lina, the woman who saved and raised him. The two were forced apart during the Little War when he was only a teenager and he is now desperately trying to find her. This is the beginning of a love triangle that takes place during a time when people are forced to relocate and can only search for a “promise land.”
• Olor a rosas invisibles (The Scent of Invisible Roses) (2002) This is a nostalgic love story between a wealthy Colombian named Luicé and a beautiful Chilean named Eloísa. They fall in love on a trip to Egypt but are soon forced apart by their parents. After several decades of separation, Eloísa, now a widow, contacts Luicé, who is still married. They begin secretly talking and eventually meeting again. Restrepo shows that love is true even if it is forbidden.
• Delirium (Delirio) (2004) Aguilar, an unemployed professor, finds his wife, Agustina, in a state of madness when he returns home after a short trip to see his children. While he searches for answers to save Agustina, he learns vague secrets about her past. The novel probes into the minds of four characters: Aguilar, Agustina, Midas (Agustina’s past lover), and Nicolás (Agustina’s grandfather). Through all four parts in the novel, the reader unearths the beginning of Agustina’s delirium.
• Demasiados heroes (Too Many Heroes) (2009) (Spanish)
• No Place For Heroes (2010) (English)

As a co-author

• Operation Prince (Operación Príncipe) (1988)
• En qué momento se jodió Medellín (1991)
• Love and Fire (Del amor y del fuego) (1991)
• Other Children (Otros niños) (1993)

Honors and Prizes

In 1997, Restrepo won the Premio Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize at the Guadalajara Book Fair for her novel The Angel of Galilea. In 2002 she won the Premio Arzobispo San Clemente Award for her novel Leopard in the Sun. In 2004 Restrepo won the VII Premio Alfaguara de Novella Prize for Delirium. She won the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy for best foreign fiction in 2006. In 2007 she won the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her novel Sweet Company won the Prix France Culture in France.

External links

• 2000 Interview in lateral (in Spanish)
• 2001 Interview in BOMB Magazine
• 2002 Interview on NOW with Bill Moyers