The novelist, essayist, journalist, lawyer and former president of Nicaragua (1984-1990), Sergio Ramírez, won the VII Erasmus Solidarity International Humanism Prize in Rotterdam for “his work of social and humanist commitment.”
According to the jury, the winner represents in his work the ethical principles of solidarity, interculturality, humanity, dignity and values of the human being.
The entity highlights that, for many years, Ramírez has been denouncing corruption, violence and the brutal exercise of power, as he describes in his novels, where the human condition is very present.
Ramírez, who is currently in exile accused of alleged crimes by the Prosecutor’s Office controlled by the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime, which issued an arrest and search warrant against him, expressed his gratitude for the award and said “honored” for the distinction awarded by the Erasmus Association of Rotterdam.
Honored to receive this distinction. Thanks to the “Erasmus of Rotterdam” Association for the recognition. https://t.co/AdeL2rDKpc
– Sergio Ramírez (@sergioramirezm) March 6, 2022
The Ortega Prosecutor’s Office ordered Ramírez’s arrest in September 2021 for allegedly “carrying out acts that promote and incite hatred and violence.” In Nicaragua, even his most recent work: “Tongolele did not know how to dance”, is prohibited.
In October 2021, upon receiving the Gold Medal from the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the writer referred to the accusations that the Ortega justice system had leveled against him, denouncing that he had been “prosecuted for his words, for the act of writing, for showing the reality of a country subjected to the violence of tyranny and for imagining”.
Award will be delivered in mid-2022
The delivery of this new distinction for Ramírez, who in 2017 was also awarded the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary award in the Spanish language, will take place during the second half of this year in Madrid, Spain, reported this Sunday in a statement the Spanish association Erasmus of Rotterdam.
The award, which lacks financial endowment, consists of a carving by the Spanish sculptor Luis M. García Cruz, allegorical of the figure of the important humanist of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Previous winners were the Spanish writer and thinker José Luis Sampedro, the Spanish philosopher Emilio Lledó, the Salvadoran writer Jorge Galán, the French philosopher and political scientist Sami Naïr, the Spanish theater director and actress Nuria Espert, and the Spanish philosopher Amelia Valcárcel.
