Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Nicaraguan writer Ramirez, who was vice-president of his country during the Sandinista regime, effectively portrays Central America as a U.S. fiefdom, an entity run by Yankee ambassadors, bankers and transnational corporate managers who foster a culture of servility, impotence and conformity. In this collection of eloquent essays, sketches, reminiscences, lyrical fragments and travel notes, he discusses massacres of student protesters and assassinations of fellow activists by the U.S.-backed Somoza clan's dictatorship in the 1960s and '70s; pays glowing tribute to Argentine novelist Julio Cortazar, a supporter of the Sandinistas; and analyzes the stagnation of popular culture through ``meaningless vernacular art'' and the constant celebration of the past. First published in Nicaragua in 1986, this volume defends the Sandinista revolution as a drive for national independence from economic and political domination by ``the Colossus of the North,'' and condemns the U.S.-led boycott and CIA-orchestrated contra invasion that, according to Ramirez, crippled socioeconomic transformation. (June)
Library Journal
One of the interesting by-products of Latin American revolutions of the Left is that literary figures are often the chroniclers of the conflict. This is especially true of the Nicaraguan Sandinista revolution of the late 1970s, which drew such important literary figures as Ernesto Cardenal and the author of this volume. A prominent literary figure of the Central American and Latin American "boom" in literature, Ramrez was an early supporter of the Sandinista revolution and served as vice president of Nicaragua under President Daniel Ortega. This volume is a translation of a 1986 Spanish-language publication of short, poetic descriptions and essays dealing with events of the revolution. Not a political account, the work focuses on the art and culture that came out of the revolution; the central figure of the volume is the Argentine writer Julio Cortzar, a prominent supporter. A fascinating look at Central America, its literature, and the politics of the Left; for subject collections.-Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ., Provo, Ut.
