Cuadra, Pablo Antonio

Cuadra, Pablo Antonio,

1912–2002, Nicaraguan poet, b. Managua. Early in life, Cuadra became a member of the Vanguard literary movement and edited (1929) its journal. Influenced by Rubén DaríoDarío, Rubén
, 1867–1916, Nicaraguan poet, originally named Félix Rubén García Sarmiento. A child prodigy, he gained a thorough knowledge of Spanish and French cultures through reading; it was then widened during many years abroad in both
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 and preoccupied with the identity of Nicaragua and its people as well as of Latin America as a whole, he often treated these themes in his poetry, e.g., Poemas nicaraguenses [Nicaraguan poems] (1933). Active politically, Cuadra broke with the Somoza dictatorship in the 1940s, adopted liberation theology, and became a vocal supporter of Nicaragua's poor and oppressed. He was co-director of La Prensa newspaper in the 1950s and in 1961 became editor of the influential journal El Pez y La Serpiente [the fish and the serpent]. Cuadra went into self-imposed exile during the SandinistaSandinistas,
members of a left-wing Nicaraguan political party, the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN). The group, named for Augusto Cesar Sandino, a former insurgent leader, was formed in 1962 to oppose the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
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 regime, returning after its fall. Little of his verse is available in English translation except for the collection The Birth of the Sun: Selected Poems, 1935–1985 (1988). The versatile Cuadra was also an essayist, critic, playwright, and graphic artist.