Pablo Antonio Cuadra


Pablo Antonio Cuadra was a Nicaraguan essayist, art and literary critic, playwright, graphic artist and one of the most famous poets of Nicaragua.

Early life and career

Cuadra was born on November 4, 1912 in Managua but spent the majority of his life in Granada. Cuadra or PAC was the son of Carlos Cuadra Pasos and Merceditas Cardenal. Cuadra is a first cousin of the writer Ernesto Cardenal.

Marriage and family

Cuadra married Adilia Mercedes Bendaña Ramírez.

Vanguardia movement

In 1931 Cuadra, along with José Coronel Urtecho, Joaquín Pasos, and other writers, founded the Vanguardia literary movement in Granada.

Later career

Cuadra's Poemas nicaragüenses was published in 1934. He opposed the American intervention against Augusto César Sandino in the 1930s and broke with the Somoza dynasty in the 1940s.
In 2000 he became co-director of La Prensa newspaper alongside his cousin and partner, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Chamorro was assassinated by Somoza supporters in 1978. Cuadra was briefly jailed in 1956 for his opposition to the Somoza's régime. In 1961 he became editor of the influential journal El Pez y La Serpiente, which was highly influential in Latin America.
Cuadra became an outspoken advocate for Nicaragua's poor, embracing liberation theology and other intellectual currents which the Somoza government considered subversive. He later criticized the post-1979 Sandinista National Liberation Front régime for stifling the independence of Nicaragua's culture. For several years thereafter, he lived in self-imposed exile in Costa Rica and Texas.
In 1995 Cuadra was Honored with an honorary doctorate degree by Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

Death

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.

Awards

Cuadra won many literary honors, among them the Gabriela Mistral Inter-American Cultural Prize, awarded by the Organization of American States in 1991.

Published works