After studying Social Communication and Law, Nicaraguan Sergio Bustamante turned professionally to what he is most passionate about: writing children’s books.
Bustamante, 30, began to explore the world of literature in 2017, when he wrote his first book entitled “crazy stories“, focused on a child audience.
“I start to do a reading, which is quite different, it is not telling the story; it is one thing to read and another thing to tell the story, but there I discover that I am heading towards something that I am very passionate about and that, in Nicaragua, was basically very unknown,” says Bustamante.
Little by little he began to enter the world of the so-called “storytellers” which, for him, represented a great opportunity to narrate his stories and promote his literature since from there the business, cultural, educational and also NGO sectors began to Contact him to work with him.
“That is where my books also have the greatest takeoff because that is to promote it in a very dynamic way through these recreational and educational activities such as storytelling,” he adds.
In Nicaragua, according to the writer, the shows children, or what has to do with this world of entertainment at the stage level, are more related to the world of clowns or magicians, even puppets. However, oral-stage narration, until then in Nicaragua, was a field that had been little explored.
He confesses that his inspiration to study was his parents. His mother, although “not with a lot of schooling”, since she only finished high school, was the basis “for me to have a love for studies and for letters because, to begin with, my mother was encouraging me to read well, to put attention in each comma, in each point and any little thing”.
“I learned and it was she who accompanied me, and I owe all this training that I have to them, to my parents,” said this writer who has a family relationship with Alfonso Cortes, a benchmark of Nicaraguan poetry.
“There is also a line dedicated to letters in a certain way and Alfonso Cortés, in fact, is part of a project that I have,” he said, referring to the writer and cousin of Bustamante’s great-grandfather.
His “outgoing” childhood
Bustamante is the only child of a family originally from Managua. He points out that the lack of siblings made him an “outgoing” person, happy to talk to others. “The fact that I was alone made me talk to people and that connected me,” he says.
To date, he has written five children’s books, three of them are bilingual and all have educational activities to reinforce knowledge and passion for reading.
The children’s acceptance has been good, he adds, and many of them tell him about the stories he writes.
“I have had thousands of children before my eyes as an audience, listening to my stories and one of the things that mark me the most are the children who tell me that they want to write like me, that they want to be authors. I love that,” he adds.
His books are related to the world of values, they call for reflection and critical thinking through literary figures for children such as his book “Titus and Ray” which he published in 2020. This book has as protagonists a street dog and a horse who together deal with the garbage in Managua.
Plans for 2023
Bustamante hopes to be able to expand his work in 2023 and travel to other countries to promote his work.
Last year it was presented in Costa Rica, with the support of John Storyteller, a Costa Rican colleague of his who, along with his son, is dedicated to literature. Father and son supported Bustamante so that he exhibited his work in Costa Rica, where he was welcomed by readers from that country.
“About 30 people came to the presentation, but it was a valuable achievement for me. The arrival of Nicaraguans who supported me filled me a lot, there was a family that bought me the collection of books, that was gratifying,” he concluded.
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