Zamora, Daisy (1950–)

Nicaraguan revolutionary, government official, and poet. Born 1950 in Managua, Nicaragua; attended University of Central America in Managua, beginning 1967; m. Dionisio Marenco (engineer, div. c. 1990); m. Oscar-Rene Vargas (sociologist and writer, div. 1997); children: (adopted) Maria Denise Marenco.

Father taken prisoner after being involved in a coup against regime of Anastasio Somoza (1954); married and settled in Chinandega, where husband worked as an engineer at a sugar mill and she taught at the mill's school; with husband, began to organize the mill workers for growing socialist Sandinista guerrilla movement (1972); when this became dangerous, moved back to Managua, where her political cell executed a successful attack on the National Palace (Aug 22, 1978), and later participated in a series of raids on state police stations, in which she was in the lead attack vehicle; fled the country; in Costa Rica, became an announcer at the revolutionary Radio Sandino, where she created a program called "The Sandinist Women"; when civil war ended (July 1979), became viceminister of culture in the new National Reconstruction government; later served as director of Institute of Economic and Social Research, and was Nicaragua's representative to UNESCO; also founded and edited the economic and social science journal Pensamiento Propio; was also one of a group of Nicaraguan women poets active during the revolution known as Las Seis (The Six); writings include Riverbed of Memory, Clean Slate: New and Selected Poems and Life for Each.

See also Women in World History.