Description
Publisher:
Eldon Garnet.
Editors:
Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and Gerald Owen.
Nicaragua Issue Editor:
Judith Doyle.
Co-Editor:
Jorge Lozano.
Editorial Assistants:
Adriana Angel, Eldon Garnet, James Gronau, and Gerald Owen.
Art Direction:
Carolyn White.
Production Assistant:
Robert Labossiere.
Business Administration:
James Gronau.
Computer Keyboard Operator:
Wendy White.
Translation:
Judith Doyle, Augusta Dwyer, D. J. Flakoll, Fred Gaysek, Jorge Lozano, Miguel J. Rakiewicz, Rhea Tregebov, and Kathleen Weaver.
Typographic Interface:
Graphic Alliance.
Table of Contents:
Alan Bolt, ‘The World, the Devil, and the Flesh’; ‘Theatre of Extraordinary Reality’, Judith Doyle interviews Alan Bolt; Juan Aburto, ‘The Disappeared’; Octavio Robleto, ‘Hidden Gold’, ‘Oluma Nights’; Alejandro Bravo, ‘The Mambo Belongs To Everyone’; Sergio Ramirez,’ excerpts From De Tropelesy Tropelias’; Lizandro Chávez Alfaro, ‘Insignia’; Fernando Silva, ‘Things that Happen on St. Martin’s Day’; Jorge Eduardo Arellano,’ Kid Tamariz’; Augusto César Sandino, ‘RIN and ROFF’; ‘A Theatre that Subverts’, Adriana Angel and Judith Doyle Interview Omar Cabezas; Margaret Randall, ‘A Conversation with Sergio Ramírez’; Julio Cortázar, ‘Acceptance Speech’; Rosario Murillo, ‘Culture’; Leonel Rugama, ‘To Go By’; Daisy Zamora, ‘Commander Two’; Rosario Murillo, ‘Illumination / Untitled’; Yolanda Blanco, ‘The Flowers of Horror’; Santos Cermeno, ‘Maypole in Bluefields’; Marvin Rios, in Masaya; Rubén Darío ‘To Roosevelt / I Seek a Form’; Adelina Díaz, ‘4 Months’; Ernesto Cardenal, ‘Managua 6:30 P.M. / I Don’t Know’.
Editorial:
“Here in Nicaragua, we speak of something we call Somocista kitsch … what the Somocistas really wanted was to turn Nicaragua into a kind of Miami -which is not really the best cultural tradition of North America.” – Sergio Ramirez, novelist, and member of the Governing Junta, Nicaragua.
This is an issue of Nicaraguan art and writing which called for or came after the July 19, 1979 victory of the revolution. At this time of expanding warfare and U.S. intervention in Central America, Nicaragua’s artwork, along with developments in health, education and land reform, are eclipsed in the news here by the old bugaboos of ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘foreign agents’, trundled out to rally public opinion against the Nicaraguan revolution.
We are publishing Nicaraguan work rather than second-hand reports to give a more direct view of the new culture in Nicaragua, following the long dictatorship. Nicaraguan artists are working to build an authentic, national culture against ‘Somocista kitsch’. There is no one ‘correct’ theory or style, and no interest in finding one. Different artists raise different ideas on the role of the artist in Nicaragua today.
The Nicaraguan government has done much to promote culture, to make the facilities and conditions for it available to far more people. It has done so in the face of a huge foreign debt following Somoza’s flight in 1979 with most of the country’s wealth, and deepening counter-revolutionary attacks backed by the Reagan administration.
In her paper, Rosario Murillo, Secretary-General of the Association of Sandinista Cultural Workers, outlines cultural programs as they are developing. To give two examples, a campaign in 1980 reduced illiteracy from 50% to 12%. Cultural supplements are published weekly in all three of Nicaragua’s daily newspapers- the FSLN party newspaper ‘Barricada’, ‘EI Nuevo Diario’, an independent paper which supports the government, and in the opposition paper ‘La Prensa’.
The Nicaraguan Council of State has passed measures affecting culture. For example, there is a law against sexual exploitation of women in advertising, and a law initiated by poet, priest, Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal against commercial exploitation of Christmas. Under the state of emergency, news for the dailies must be submitted to a censor’s office, which is trying to inhibit the publication of “lies, manipulation and misinformation.” – Lieutenant Nelba Blandón, Director of News Media, National Reconstruction Government. ‘La Prensa’ posts rejected articles outside the newspaper offices. The Sandinistas have declared that all opinions can be expressed through editorials, and the absolute freedom of artists and writers to produce and exhibit their work.
There were many works we wanted to publish in this issue, but could not because of space and time limits. We regret the absence of work from Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, and wish we could have published more popular poetry and drawing, given their importance in Nicaragua.
We dedicate this issue to Julio Cortázar, the Argentinian novelist who died this February and was a great friend of the Nicaraguan revolution. We share the aims of Artists’ Call – “a broad coalition of U.S. and Canadian artists, art publications, commercial galleries, artists’ organizations and film and video screening spaces who are organizing activities in homage to the Central American people, and to protest the growing U.S. military presence in Central America.”
Judith Doyle
