Un volumen que reúne toda la obra cuentística del Premio Cervantes Sergio Ramírez.
La cuentística de Sergio Ramírez se destaca por su peculiar sentido de lo mediante un juego de perspectivas logra crear efectos y sensaciones contrapuestas en el lector. A manera de sátira social, sus cuentos narran con tono irónico los más comunes sucesos de la cultura latinoamericana.
Historias frescas, personajes y diálogos pulidos muestran el gran talento del nicaragüense y la madurez que ha alcanzado su trabajo. Escritor de ficción que transforma las preocupaciones del acontecer cotidiano y político de su país en grandes historias icónicas.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
A volume which compiles all the short story work of the Cervantes Prize winner Sergio Ramirez.
Sergio Ramirez’ short stories stand out due to his peculiar visual through a game of perceptions he plays with the reader and manages to create opposing effects and sensations. As social satire and with an ironic tone, his stories narrate the most common events of Latin American culture.
Lively stories and well-polished characters and dialogues display the Nicaraguan writer’s great talent and portray the wisdom and high quality that his work has achieved. Ramirez is a fiction writer that transforms his country’s current anguishes and political events into great iconic stories.
Sergio Ramírez Mercado (born August 5, 1942 in Masatepe, Nicaragua) is a Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who served in the leftist Government Junta of National Reconstruction and as Vice President of the country 1985-1990 under the presidency of Daniel Ortega.
Born in Masatepe in 1942, he published his first book, Cuentos, in 1963. He received his law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua of León in 1964, where he obtained the Gold Medal for being the best student.
In 1977 Ramírez became head of the "Group of Twelve", a group of prominent intellectuals, priests, businesspeople, and members of civil society who publicly stated their support for the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) in its struggle to topple the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. With the triumph of the Revolution in 1979, he became part of the Junta of the Government of National Reconstruction, where he presided over the National Council of Education. He was elected vice-president of Nicaragua in 1984 and was sworn in 1985.
If a sentence cannot carry a whole paragraph, then you not only don’t need that sentence, but you probably aren’t reading all of Sergio Ramírez’s stories.
Ramírez’s book is a thoughtful and emotionally gripping collection of his short stories about life in Nicaragua. He is an adept storyteller who uses precise social observation in tightly crafted narratives. They are often composed of intimate scenes from daily family life and they explore the broader historical and political questions about identity, memory, and power in Central America. The stories span a spectrum of themes of corruption, poverty, exile, politics, censorship, and change, while focusing on ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Across the collection, humor, irony, and empathy coexist with a steady critique of injustice, making the book both accessible and thought-provoking.
One story in particular still haunts me, though it was very short. "The Student" had a very high impact in few words. I was left just staring into space for about an hour after reading that. I will never forget it. The author weaves a spell over you with his words, making you feel like you are there.
About half of these eighty stories are two to five pages long. The rest are about ten or more pages. Short stories are a relaxing way to get to know any author’s life and work. I take them in whatever order they seize me. Having explored the most intriguing titles, I realized this author uses sophisticated structure. One paragraph had a 116-word sentence and was finished with a “short sentence” of 17 words (two sentences only.) Another paragraph had 145 words in a single sentence paragraph. Since Spanish is my second language, I decided to read all the shorter stories next. Then I moved on to the longer stories, averaging five to ten stories a day. This works well.
After reading the book, you will see why Ramírez has a reputation as a master craftsman of short fiction in the Spanish-speaking world. The stories are built within Nicaragua’s recent history and they resonate emotionally with universal questions about dignity, memory, and storytelling that extend beyond any single place or time. Collective experiences… that is the concept that most stands out in this poignant work. I recommend it for those who read Spanish as a second language, as well as native speakers. I found the book at my local library.