Sergio Ramírez was awarded the Carlos Fuentes International Prize
13/11/2014Tuesday November 11th, Sergio Ramírez was awarded the Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Creative Writing given by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM ) and the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONACULTA). The members of the jury were Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel Prize and also awarded the first edition of this Prize), Soledad Puértolas, Margo Glantz and Gonzalo Celorio, who chose Sergio Ramirez for "Combining a high quality literature with a committed literature and its role as a free and critical intellectual with a civic high calling ". He has published over 50 titles in various genres such as novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs. His work has been translated into more than 15 languages and he has been awarded with the Dashiel Hammett Prize in 1990 for Castigo Divino (Divine Punishment), the Laure Bataillon Award in 1998 for the best foreign translated book into French for Un baile de máscaras (A mask dance), the Alfaguara International Prize, 1998, for Margarita está linda la mar (Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea), and the José Donoso Prize granted by the University of Talca, Chile. It´s an honor for the Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency to represent this icon of Ibero-American literature.
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Castigo Divino, by Sergio Ramírez, appears in English for the first time
06/05/2015Divine Punishment was published back in 1988 and has been translated into many languages, but never before into English. Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor, it is launched today by McPherson & Co. This publication will be celebrated with appearences of the author and translator at the Americas Society in New York City in association with the Instituto Cervantes. Tomorrow there will be a panel for Sergio at the Instituto Cervantes. Both events are officially part of the PEN World Voices Festival. Upon its original publication, Carlos Fuentes declared Divine Punishment to be the quintessential Central American novel. In this, the greatest work of a storied literary career, Sergio Ramírez transforms the most celebrated criminal trial in Nicaraguan history—the alleged murders in 1933 of two high society women and their employer by a Casanova named Oliverio Castañeda—into an examination of the entire Nicaraguan society at the brink of the first Somoza dictatorship. Passion, money, sex, gossip, political intrigue, medical malpractice and judicial corruption all merge into a novel that reads like a courtroom drama wrapped in yellow journalism disguised as historical fiction posing as a scandal of the first order. “This is a big, beautiful novel –a compelling historical drama of competing narratives and colorful characters that is self-aware and tigned with black humor.” - Publishers Weekly
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Ramírez, Sergio
Nicaragua, 1942 Sergio Ramírez was born in 1942 in Masatepe, Nicaragua. He published his first short stories at the age of eighteen. Whilst studying law he founded the literary magazine “Ventana” (“Window”) and in 1970 published his first novel, Tiempo de fulgor (Glaring Times). Since then till Tongolele no sabía bailar (Tongolele did not know how to dance) there have appeared Ya nadie llora por mí (No One No Longer Cries for Me, Alfaguara, 2017), Un baile de mascaras (Masked Ball), Castigo Divino (Divine Punishment) (Premio Dashiel Hammett in 1990), Margarita está linda la mar (Margarita How Beautiful the Sea) (Premio Alfaguara in 1998), Mil y una muertes (One Thousand and One Deaths), La Fugitiva, (The Fugitive), or the detective novel El cielo llora por mi (The Sky Cries for Me). Another of his constant genres has been the short story, of which stand out the volumes El reino animal (Animal Kingdom), Perdón y olvido (Forgivness and Oblivion), Flores oscuras (Dark Flowers) and his Personal Anthology, 50 Years of Short Stories (Oceáno Mexico, 2017). But also the recollection, Adiós muchachos (Goodbye Fellows, 1999), the essay Mentiras verdaderas (True Lies, 2001) and the indefatigable oped writer. His books have been translated into 20 languages. His latest novel is Ese día cayó en domingo (That Day Fell on a Sunday, 2022). • Cervantes Prize 2017 • Premio Iberoamericano de Letras José Donoso, awarded by the Universidad de Talca, Chile, 2011 • Premio Panamá Negro. Feria Internacional del Libro, Panamá, 2017. • Premio Carlos Fuentes a la Creación Literaria (Spanish language), awarded in México, 2014. • Premio del Festival Internacional Metrópolis Bleu, Montreal, Canadá, 2011 • Premio Latinoamericano José María Arguedas, 2000 • Premio Alfaguara de Novela, 1998 • Prix Laure Bataillon, 1998 • Premio Internacional Dashiel Hammett de Novela ,1995 • Named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1993) www.sergioramirez.com/
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