Madrid (EFE) Mexican journalist Víctor Núñez Jaime.
“They will never be able to take away the Nicaraguan soul,” the journalist told EFE this Wednesday, who will receive the 2023 King of Spain International Award for Cultural Journalism this Thursday in Madrid for “The second exile of Sergio Ramírez”, a broad profile From the writer.
“The second exile of Sergio Ramírez”
It was published by the Mexican newspaper Milenio on August 27, 2022, with details of the daily life of Ramírez, 80, who has Spanish nationality and lives in exile in Madrid.
Apart from the great personal “happiness” that the award represents, Núñez Jaime trusts that it will serve to keep Nicaraguan news and its exiles in the media spotlight.
The journalist defines his work as “a long-winded report” in a time when everything is consumed quickly, so he values even more that someone stops to read it and that, in addition, it receives an award. It was “very much” worth it, he emphasized.
He recalled that Sergio Ramírez, 2017 Cervantes Prize winner, is one of the “thousands of Nicaraguans who have had to go into forced exile from their country due to a dictatorship.”
He is one of the 300 people, including opponents and critics of Daniel Ortega, who the Nicaraguan authorities stripped of their nationality a few months ago for “treason.”
Apart from his political career, Núñez was interested in how he faces daily life in this “second exile”: leaving his home, his family, the life he had already made in Nicaragua, and which he surely already thought would end there. His first exile was in the days of the dictator Anastasio Somoza.
Sergio Ramírez is still a Nicaraguan, says Nuñez
To do this, the journalist spoke with Ramírez and people who know him and also dedicated himself to observing his behavior in public activity in Spain for several months, his reactions in tributes and book presentations.
“I am not a psychologist, obviously, but it is the intention, also to draw a psychological profile of the sitter,” acknowledges the Mexican journalist.
By depriving him of his nationality, consequently they also took away the law degree he obtained at the University of León, according to the journalist: “He no longer has anything,” he adds, “he is very sad, it was a heavy sentimental blow.” But he is still a Nicaraguan, concludes Núñez Jaime.
The King of Spain International Journalism Awards, the most prestigious in the Ibero-American sphere, celebrate their 40th anniversary. They were created by the EFE Agency and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid).
In addition to the economic endowment of 10,000 euros (10,800 dollars at current exchange rates) -an amount that places them at the Pulitzer level-, the winners will receive from the hands of the King of Spain Felipe VI a sculpture by the Spanish artist Joaquín Vaquero Turcios.