The winner of the 2017 Cervantes Prize, Sergio Ramírez, turns 80 this August 5, of which he has dedicated 60 to writing. This year he commemorates this date from exile after the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo banned him from the country in 2021. Ramírez was summoned by the Prosecutor’s Office to testify in an alleged money laundering case against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (FVBCH ), an entity that is used by the regime to subsequently dictate jail “under investigation” against its opponents,
Currently, the Nicaraguan writer is the most prestigious public intellectual in Central America. His career includes more than 60 books, including novels, essays, chronicles and stories that have earned him a large number of awards. His works have been translated into 18 languages, in addition to the creation of a television series in Colombia during the 90s from his successful novel “Divine Punishment.”
Related news: Sergio Ramírez awarded in Spain for his novel that portrays the crisis in Nicaragua
Poets from different parts of the world have congratulated the writer on this date and for his career. The Spanish poet Daniel Rodríguez, director of the documentary Nicaragua, homeland free to live, expressed that “since I met him, I have been convinced that Nicaragua lost the opportunity to have had in him who would undoubtedly have been its best statesman. In return, literature won one of the greats. Of the many wonderful things that he has given me, that the little country continues to give me since I first arrived 18 years ago, without a doubt one of them is his friendship, of which I feel very honored».
«I do not lose hope, we cannot afford it, that sooner rather than later I will be able to visit you again in the most beautiful country in the world. Here’s to it, Sergio, and to your eighties,” Rodríguez said. The Nicaraguan writer, novelist and poet, Gioconda Belli, also congratulated the intellectual for his 80 years “very well accompanied.”
Recently, Ramírez was awarded at the XXXV edition of the Black Week in Gijón, Spain, for his novel Tongolele did not know how to dance, in which he portrays the crisis in Nicaragua, a work that was vetoed in Nicaragua by decision of Ortega. The jury dedicated a special mention to the Nicaraguan “for his ability to turn the tragic drift of a brother country into high literature.”
Related news: Sergio Ramírez dedicates recognition to political prisoners who “suffer in the jails of the Ortega dictatorship”
The writer lives his second exile from Spain and accused of allegedly “inciting hatred and violence.” Currently, his novel “Tongolele did not know how to dance” in which he reflects the events that occurred in 2018, is being held by the dictatorship and is prohibited from being sold in the country. That novel that keeps the dictatorship furious is the one that has put Ramírez once again under the eye of the world of literature, being awarded not only for the quality of his works but also for his “political courage” of the.
Ramírez has stated that “as long as I have a voice, I will continue to use it to denounce what is happening in my country, beyond my status as a writer.” He affirms that “the great attack” of the Nicaraguan dictatorship is against freedom of expression.
