This chapter charts the development of women's writing within Colombia from independence up until the present day. Although women were writing in Colombia as early as the Colonial period, it was in the nineteenth century, with the rise to prominence of one of Colombia's most prolific writers, that women first made their mark on the national literary scene in a sustained fashion. Following on from this, the early twentieth century saw a significant number of women poets, short story writers, and writers of crónicas, followed, in the second half of the twentieth century, by the rise of the post-Boom generation and a significant number of women novelists. Toward the latter part of the century, a generation of new women writers emerged whose prose was heavily influenced by journalism, and since then and into the twenty-first century, we have seen the rise of urban, popular, and genre fiction among Colombian women writers.

The nineteenth century

In the nineteenth century in Colombia, as with most other Latin American countries, letters and politics were intimately entwined, with literature mostly dominated by male writers who were often at the same time statesmen and military leaders. Yet the nineteenth century also saw the emergence of published women writers, and in Colombia none was more prominent than Soledad Acosta (1833–1913). Widely recognized as Colombia's most significant woman writer in the nineteenth century, Acosta was a hugely prolific writer who turned her hand to a myriad of genres and styles, including short fiction, novels, drama, translations, essays, crónicas, and journalistic articles.

Daughter of the famous national hero of the War of Independence Joaquín Acosta and wife of the prominent Liberal politician and writer José María Samper, Acosta formed part of the Liberal elites of the time, yet her works also display a growing concern for women and their roles within the nation. Among her most famous works is the novel Dolores: cuadros de la vida de una mujer (Dolores: Portraits of the Life of a Woman), published originally as a serial in the newspaper El Mensajero in 1867 and subsequently republished in the book Novelas y cuadros de la vida sur-americana (Novels and Portraits of South American Life) in 1869. In Dolores, the eponymous heroine discovers she has leprosy and as a result must cancel her marriage plans subsequently withdrawing from the world.