Sergio Ramírez, writer and former civilian leader in the Sandinista revolutionary government from 1985-1990, has now won the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary award in the Hispanic world. He wrote his great panoramic novel from exile, and this was the first Nicaraguan novel ever translated into English. The long years of dictatorship in Nicaragua are dramatically recreated as cabaret singers, activists, policemen, prostitutes, beauty queens and would-be presidents haunt this sophistica...

In the two decades since Sergio Ramírez left active politics as a Sandinista leader of one of the great leftist revolutions of the Americas, his output as a writer and the appreciation of his literary achievement have only grown larger, culminating in his winning the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary accolade for a writer in the Hispanic world.These stories dating from early in his writing career and also marking his return to literature after a gap of some years in active poli...