Murillo has been first lady of Nicaragua twice (1985-1990 and 2007-2017), vice president (2017-2025), and co-president (since February 2025). She also is a published poet who has been involved with revolutionary and establishment politics since the late 1960s. With her husband, Daniel Ortega, Murillo has been an important figure in the Sandinista movement that overthrew the Somoza dictatorship and fought the Contra War. Particularly since returning to power in the twenty-first century, Ortega and Murillo have dispensed with any pretense of democratic socialism and have become increasingly authoritarian. Kampwirth draws on interviews with those close to Murillo as well as her own words to draw a portrait of a woman who arguably has betrayed her principles and sacrificed intimate relationships, motherhood, and familial ties to advance her own ambitions for power.
