1. Laura Restrepo's father left school age of 13 to go out to work before becoming a businessman.
24 Facts About Laura Restrepo
1. 2.
Laura Restrepo's father took her to visit museums, theaters, ruins, and to climb volcanoes and watch geysers.
3.
Laura Restrepo introduced her to composers such as Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.
4.
Laura Restrepo moved back to Colombia age fifteen where she had to work hard to earn a high school degree as she had not taken the required subjects previously but in spite of this, she was able to obtain her diploma.
5.
Laura Restrepo was the first person in her father's family to receive a diploma.
6.
Laura Restrepo gave up her teaching job and got involved in Colombian politics before joining 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.
7.
Laura Restrepo technically began writing when she was nine years old.
8.
Laura Restrepo began writing in love, memory, and just to get the feeling of being close to him again.
9.
Laura Restrepo returned to Colombia after three years in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and began writing for Semana, a magazine, in the national and international politics section.
10.
Laura Restrepo wrote this novel while she was in Mexico, seeing as she missed Colombia so much, she decided to begin a story.
11.
Laura Restrepo says, "she never used the word 'drugs' in the novel, because she is convinced that 'all readers read between the lines'".
12.
Laura Restrepo uses religious beings in this novel when in fact she never had formal religious training.
13.
Laura Restrepo graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of the Andes, Colombia and earned a post-graduate degree in political science.
14.
Laura Restrepo often appears as a guest speaker at political forums and universities.
15.
Laura Restrepo was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 2007 to 2013.
16.
Laura Restrepo's novels are widely used in academic institutions for courses ranging from humanities to social sciences.
17.
Laura Restrepo teaches months every year at the University of Seville.
18.
Laura Restrepo tried to find a style of writing that fit her, eventually developing a mix of reality and fiction to create a style she calls "report style".
19.
Laura Restrepo places most of her novels in Colombia during times of political struggle, though her recent 2012 novel Hot Sur is set in the United States, albeit its main protagonist is a Colombian woman.
20.
Laura Restrepo writes about the daily struggle to survive in a country where society is damaged by war and corruption.
21.
Laura Restrepo's novels have at least one obstacle to overcome where the main character must show strong will in order to battle their obstacles; however, sometimes it is easier for them to do so with help from a loved one.
22.
In 1997, Laura Restrepo won the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize at the Guadalajara International Book Fair for her novel The Angel of Galilea.
23.
In 2004 Laura Restrepo won the VII Premio Alfaguara de Novela for Delirium.
24.
Laura Restrepo won the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Italy for best foreign fiction in 2006.