Belli was involved in the Nicaraguan Revolution from a very young age and occupied important positions in the Sandinista Party and the Nicaraguan Writer’s Union. She won the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1978 for her poetry book Line of Fire, and the prize for the Best Political Novel of the Year in Germany in 1989 for her novel The Inhabited Woman. Her memoir The Country Under My Skin was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2003.

She resigned from the Sandinista Party in 1993 and divides her time between Nicaragua and Los Angeles.