A Conversation with Writer Sergio Ramirez (in Spanish)

The Instituto Cervantes is delighted to present Nicaraguan writer, essayist, journalist and poet, Sergio Ramírez (Masatepe, 1942) in conversation (in Spanish) with H. Rosi Song, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Durham University.

Sergio Ramírez's career spans not only the history of his country, but also that of the many countries through which he has travelled while writing, working, and teaching. These include Mexico, Peru, Chile, the USA, and Spain, where he is currently living. Sergio Ramírez has won multiple awards that recognise him as one of the great writers of our time, including the ‘José María Arguedas Narrative Award’ (2000), in 2011 he received the ‘José Donoso Ibero-American Literature Award in Chile for his literary work as a whole, and in 2014 the ‘Carlos Fuentes International Award’. He is the first Central American author to receive, in 2017, the highest recognition for the creative work of Spanish and Latin American writers, the ‘Premio Cervantes’. In 1977 he headed up the group ‘the Twelve’, made up of intellectuals, businessmen, priests, and civil leaders, who fought against the Somoza regime. After the electoral triumph of the Sandinista Front (1979), he was elected vice-president of Nicaragua. After 1996, he decided to leave politics to return to the world of literature. Sergio Ramírez runs the online magazine ‘Carátula’ and writes for the literary blog ‘Boomerang’ of the newspaper El País (Spain). In 2019, the director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, inaugurated the library of the Instituto Cervantes in Hamburg which was named after the Nicaraguan author.

During this conversation we want to bring together his many experiences, sharing his life lessons a storyteller, as a citizen of the world and, above all, his memories as a book lover and dedicated reader, also reflecting on current issues. A prolific author of a diverse and committed literature, his work shows us the importance of narrating reality and sharing his stories, from his highly acclaimed novel ‘Margarita, está linda la mar’ (1998) to his numerous works as a crime writer, including the popular trilogy ‘El cielo llora por mí’ (2008), ‘Ya nadie llora por mí’ (2017) and ‘Tongolele no sabía bailar’ (2021). A born fabulist of our times, his humour and irony, immersed within masterful and dazzling language, become useful tools to reveal the intricacies of our environment, always captured within plots of power and in the face of which knowledge is shown as the best form of resistance.