The novels of Sergio Ramírez

Facing power, an ethics of writing

Abstract

Sergio Ramírez is an essential writer in the narratives of the isthmus, and is also particularly interesting for his dual literary and political trajectory. In fact, his novels, in which power appears as a central and structural theme, are possible responses of literature to political power, between extraliterary references and fictional imagery. We will study first the figures of power, its novelistic configurations which, between abuse, corruption and death, shape a power that is degraded, if not ridiculed by means of an essentially satirical discursive tonality whose critical function is evident. We will then look at the narrative procedures related to power that deconstruct the plot, the genre, the story itself and the notion of objective and unique truth. Finally, we will ask to what extent Sergio Ramírez reveals, in the face of power, an ethics of writing, as counter-discourse and implication, that is to say, an active writing?