Stories of Dictatorship. Sergio Ramirez´s First Tales

Abstract

The first stories of the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez present elements that form the main features of individual and social life during the Somoza´s dictatorship (1936 - 1979). Some of the problems that appear are power, violence, political, social and economic dependence. Their treatment is accentuated or modified between one publication and another. These texts also questioned the role of art and the intellectual within the liberation struggles led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. I propose a series of stories included in Cuentos (1963), Nuevos Cuentos (1969) and Charles Atlas también muere (1976) in wich I review the stance on art and the intellectual in this context by the autofiguration of the author. Then, I explore some elements that shape those narrative worlds. They function as a political-social denunciation, while they imagine and claim a new nation in tune with the postulates present in the revolutionary struggles.

Keywords

• Sergio Ramírez, cuentos, dictadura, violencia, poder