Pablo Antonio Cuadra Cardenal | |
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| Born | (1912-11-04)November 4, 1912 Managua, Nicaragua |
| Died | January 2, 2002(2002-01-02) (aged 89) Managua, Nicaragua |
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Pablo Antonio Cuadra (November 4, 1912 – January 2, 2002) was aNicaraguan essayist,art andliterary critic,playwright,graphic artist and one of the most famouspoets ofNicaragua.[1]
Cuadra was born on November 4, 1912[2] inManagua but spent the majority of his life inGranada, even studying high school atColegio Centro America. Cuadra or PAC was the son of Carlos Cuadra Pasos and Merceditas Cardenal. Cuadra is a first cousin of the writerErnesto Cardenal.
Cuadra married Adilia Mercedes Bendaña Ramírez.
In 1931 Cuadra, along withJosé Coronel Urtecho,Joaquín Pasos, and other writers, founded theVanguardia literary movement inGranada.[3]
Cuadra'sPoemas nicaragüenses was published in 1934. He opposed the American intervention againstAugusto César Sandino in the 1930s and broke with theSomoza dynasty in the 1940s.
In 1954 he became co-director ofLa Prensa newspaper alongside his cousin and partner,Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Chamorro was assassinated by Somoza supporters in 1978.[1] Cuadra was briefly jailed in 1956 for his opposition to the Somoza's régime.[4] In 1961 he became editor of the influential journalEl Pez y La Serpiente (The Fish and the Serpent),[5] which was highly influential inLatin America.
Cuadra became an outspoken advocate for Nicaragua's poor, embracingliberation theology and other intellectual currents which the Somoza government considered subversive.[1] He later criticized the post-1979Sandinista National Liberation Front régime for stifling the independence of Nicaragua's culture.[6] For several years thereafter, he lived in self-imposedexile inCosta Rica andTexas.
In 1995 Cuadra was Honored with an honorary doctorate degree[7] byUniversidad Francisco Marroquín.
He died on January 2, 2002, in Managua, following a respiratory illness. Cuadra was buried on January 4 in Granada, where he spent the majority of his life.[4]
Cuadra won many literary honors, among them theGabriela Mistral Inter-American Cultural Prize, awarded by theOrganization of American States in 1991.[1]
