Nicaraguan Sketches

Fifteen elegant, politically committed essays by the late (d. 1984), great Argentinian writer (Hopscotch, etc.). As if responding to the years of criticism heaped upon him by fellow Latin Americans for his decades-long self-exile to Paris, here Cortazar holds high the banner of Latin American liberation, Sandinista-style in particular. Beginning with a 1976 essay about a trip to then-Somoza-ruled Nicaragua, followed by an essay describing a subsequent, post-Revolution trip in which he flew into Managua on Somoza's jet (". . .left behind by the tyrant and his cohorts. In the cabin of the plane were two chairs with a table between and a lateral bench to seat four, everything slathered with animal pelts and stinking of dollars"), Cortazar details the Sandinista revolt, triumph, and, to him, "dazzling achievements"--forcefully detailing Sandinista economic reforms, just as forcefully defending its controversial displacement of the Miskito Indians and harassment of the opposition newspaper, La Prensa. Artful and passionate.… (more)