Books by country North America
Five books by writers from Nicaragua, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War and Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea.
Nicaragua's most celebrated writer is the poet Rubén Darío, whose book Azul, published in 1888, helped launch the modernismo movement in Spanish-language poetry. Writers there have often been drawn into public life: Sergio Ramírez served as vice president in the Sandinista government, and the Somoza dictatorship and the revolution run through much of the best-known work. Darío is buried in the cathedral of León.
Sergio Ramírez's Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea is a historical novel set in León that weaves Darío's funeral in 1916 together with the plot to kill the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1956. Gioconda Belli's The Country Under My Skin is her memoir of leaving Managua's elite to join the Sandinista struggle. Rosario Aguilar's The Lost Chronicles of Terra Firma is a fictional account of the Spanish conquest of Nicaragua, told partly through the women of the period.
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Memoir of a woman from Managua's elite who joins the Sandinista struggle, covering the Somoza dictatorship and the revolution.
Historical novel of León in 1907 that mixes Rubén Darío's funeral and a murder mystery, showing the era's politics and literary culture.
The Sandinista vice president recounts the revolution, its ideals and its disillusionments, with a clear sense of 1970s–90s politics.
Panoramic novel of Nicaraguan life under the Somoza regime, following several characters from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Fictional account of the Spanish conquest of Nicaragua, told partly through the women of the period.
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