The Colombian author Laura Restrepo has been a professor of literature at the National University of Colombia, as well as a publisher at the magazine Semana, where she covered the drug trade for 12 years.
In 1984, she was a member of the Peace Commission that brought the Colombian government and the guerrillas to the negotiating table, an experience she later recorded in her book History of a Betrayal.
She is the author of seven novels and novellas, published in more than 20 languages. They include The Isle of Passion, Leopard in the Sun, which won the Premio Arzobispo San Clemente, The Angel of Galilea, which won the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in Mexico and the Prix France Culture in France, The Dark Bride,