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. She was the recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship.

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.

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 Tale of the Dispossessed (La Multitud Errante: Novela) (2001)
• Invisible Roses Odor (Olor a rosas invisibles) (2002)
• Delirium (Delirio) (2004)
• Too Many Heroes (Demasiados heroes) (2009)

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)

External links

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