Sergio Ramírez

Sergio Ramírez is a Nicaraguan novelist and political figure born in 1942 in Masatepe. He is one of the most important writers in Central American literature and a significant political figure who served as Vice-President of Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega from 1985 to 1990, before eventually breaking with the Sandinistas. He now lives in exile. Ramírez is the author of more than twenty novels, story collections, and essays. His most celebrated novel is ¿Te dio miedo la sangre? (To Bury Our Fathers, 1977), a polyphonic epic about the Nicaraguan struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. His Rubén Darío trilogy and his detective novels featuring Inspector Dolores Morales are among his most widely translated works. He received the Premio Cervantes in 2017, recognition of a lifetime's contribution to Central American and Spanish-language literature and of his courageous literary witness to political tyranny. Since 2021, he has lived in exile after being accused of treason by the Nicaraguan government of Daniel Ortega. Ramírez is a central figure in the tradition of politically engaged Latin American literature, a writer who has never separated the literary and the political vocation.