Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez champions exile as he joins the RAE

FILE PHOTO: Award-winning Nicaraguan Sergio Ramírez, for 'El caballo dorado', at the VI Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel, at the Gran Teatro, on October 25, 2025, in Cáceres, Extremadura (Spain). Driven by the Cátedra Vargas Llosa since 2014, the Biennial was born with the aim of projecting Spanish-language literature at an international level. After its first editions in Lima (Peru) and Guadalajara (Mexico), it is being held for the first time in Extremadura. Carlos Criado - Europa Press Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez joined the Real Academia Española (RAE) this Sunday, where he delivered a speech dedicated to Mario Vargas Llosa, whom he succeeds in the L chair, and expressed his gratitude to Spain for having received him after his departure from Nicaragua. Ramírez, born in Masatepe in 1942, obtained Spanish nationality in 2018 and has lived in exile in Spain for five years. In his first address before the plenary of the institution, he maintained that he never felt a stranger to the country he chose as his place of residence after the Nicaraguan regime stripped him of his citizenship. "I have never been a foreigner in Spain," the author stated at the beginning of his speech. He also referred to the political situation of his native country, which he described as a nation "subjugated by a tyrannical regime as outlandish and cruel as few in the history of Latin America." The writer recalled the decision he made when the possibilities of returning to Nicaragua were closed to him. "After wandering through many places, and after many twists and turns, when the doors of Nicaragua were closed to me, and I was also stripped of my citizenship, I decided that Spain was my place of asylum and settlement, and I decided well," he said. Ramírez's admission to the Academy came after the institution's plenary elected him on May 21, 2025, to fill the seat left vacant by Vargas Llosa following his death on April 13, 2025. The author of Margarita, está linda la mar was the only candidate for the L chair. In his speech, the 2017 Cervantes Prize winner dwelt on the relationship between the Spanish language, memory, and uprootedness. He defined the language as a tool that "bridges distances" and "erases borders," an experience he linked to his childhood memories in Masatepe, his hometown. For Ramírez, the Spanish he learned during his early years has a rural and provincial root. He recalled the voices of peasants, workers, washerwomen, and street vendors who were part of the daily life of his town, as well as his father's general store. The writer pointed out that this language preserves terms from various traditions. He mentioned turns of phrase from the Golden Age that survived in the popular speech of Nicaragua, words of Chorotega and Nahuatl origin, as well as some African voices. "That is the language I carry with me, a language of the hinterland and a language of exile," he summarized before the academicians. The response on behalf of the RAE was given by the writer and academic Luis Mateo Díez. Ramírez is also a member of the board of trustees of the Fundación del Español Urgente (FundéuRAE), linked to promoting the proper use of language in the media. Sergio Ramírez alongside Mario Vargas Llosa. File photoAlthough admission speeches usually include a section dedicated to the previous occupant of the chair, Ramírez chose to focus his entire address on Vargas Llosa and his literary output. He admitted that assuming the seat of the Peruvian Nobel laureate entails an enormous responsibility. "Vargas Llosa is an ecumenical novelist in every sense," he stated. He defined him as a narrator capable of crossing the turn of the century without losing relevance and highlighted his willingness to experiment with forms, renew language, and defend imagination as an expression of freedom. Ramírez placed the author of La ciudad y los perros within a tradition that begins with Hispanic American modernism, with Rubén Darío as a central figure, and which later incorporated the influence of novels such as Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo. He recalled that Vargas Llosa had dedicated his bachelor's thesis, in 1958, to the Nicaraguan poet. He also reviewed some of the themes present in the Nobel laureate's work: the conflicts between civilization and barbarism, political violence, dictatorships, social inequalities, and ideological disputes. According to Ramírez, these issues appeared in Vargas Llosa's novels from diverse perspectives and narrative structures. The use of "Perú" or "el Perú" frequently raises doubts in Spanish and has no single correct answer. AI VisualsThe new academic placed Vargas Llosa's emergence within the so-called Latin American boom, alongside figures such as Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Carlos Onetti, Ernesto Sábato, and Alejo Carpentier. Ramírez argued that, despite their generational and stylistic differences, those authors shared a desire to renew the region's narrative. He also noted the impact of the Cuban revolution on that generation and the political divisions that later arose among several of its members. The Nicaraguan writer recalled that he read La ciudad y los perros when he was 20 years old and that he tried to understand the techniques with which Vargas Llosa had constructed the novel. The story, set in a Lima marked by social differences, allowed him to discover techniques that later influenced his own development as a narrator. "The fragmentation of discourse through collage, cinematic shots, the flashback, and the interior monologue entered my own experience as a reader and apprentice writer through the boom," Ramírez stated, according to EFE, the Spanish state news agency.