Dead Men Cast No Shadows
SKU:
0619
$16.00
$16.00
per item
Volume Three of The Managua Trilogy, translated from the Spanish (Tongolele no sabía bailar) by Daryl R. Hague
978-1-62054-061-9, 286 pages, 5.5 x 8.5” paperback original
Publication date: September 1, 2023
Forcibly exiled to Honduras at the conclusion of No One Weeps for Me Now, Inspector Dolores Morales returns in Sergio Ramirez's final volume of The Managua Trilogy accompanied by a cast of brave priests, corrupt secret service agents, washed up former foot soldiers, and out-for-themselves vestiges of mid-century ideals, all colliding in this exuberant portrait of the depredations of oligarchs and dictators, the human cost of promises deferred, and the implacable hopes and resolve of Nicaraguans. In this riotous, damning, wide-awake Central American noir we witness the final gasps of revolutionary idealism quashed in the bloodshed of the 2018 student protests, where more than 400 were killed or injured. It was, and is, a tragedy of a scope that’s hard to comprehend, but with masterful irony Ramirez makes the desperation of those days more than a metaphor for a failed state—in his hands it’s a tribute to every instinct for self-preservation, freedom, and self-respect.
"This wrenching political thriller is a thinly veiled critique of the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega and his brutal repression of large-scale protests in 2018. Ramírez’s hard-hitting novel has been banned in Nicaragua, and Ortega has stripped the prolific, high-profile author of his Nicaraguan citizenship. . . .His vivid, well-drawn characters—often former revolutionary fighters—have turned opportunistic, deceitful, even savage. His stinging takedowns of Ortega’s wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, and of a former guerrilla commander, Edén Pastora, hit their marks. . . . Ortega’s relentless concentration of power has brutalized Nicaragua and darkened the imagination of one of its most creative minds."—Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs
(see below for full review)
Arts Fuse Review: "A Thriller That's an Act of Political Courage"
NYTimes Author Profile: "A Nicaraguan Novelist Betrayed by the Revolution He Helped Build"
For Volume One, The Sky Weeps for Me, go here.
For Volume Two, No One Weeps for Me Now, go here.
For all three volumes as a set (20% discount), go here.
978-1-62054-061-9, 286 pages, 5.5 x 8.5” paperback original
Publication date: September 1, 2023
Forcibly exiled to Honduras at the conclusion of No One Weeps for Me Now, Inspector Dolores Morales returns in Sergio Ramirez's final volume of The Managua Trilogy accompanied by a cast of brave priests, corrupt secret service agents, washed up former foot soldiers, and out-for-themselves vestiges of mid-century ideals, all colliding in this exuberant portrait of the depredations of oligarchs and dictators, the human cost of promises deferred, and the implacable hopes and resolve of Nicaraguans. In this riotous, damning, wide-awake Central American noir we witness the final gasps of revolutionary idealism quashed in the bloodshed of the 2018 student protests, where more than 400 were killed or injured. It was, and is, a tragedy of a scope that’s hard to comprehend, but with masterful irony Ramirez makes the desperation of those days more than a metaphor for a failed state—in his hands it’s a tribute to every instinct for self-preservation, freedom, and self-respect.
"This wrenching political thriller is a thinly veiled critique of the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega and his brutal repression of large-scale protests in 2018. Ramírez’s hard-hitting novel has been banned in Nicaragua, and Ortega has stripped the prolific, high-profile author of his Nicaraguan citizenship. . . .His vivid, well-drawn characters—often former revolutionary fighters—have turned opportunistic, deceitful, even savage. His stinging takedowns of Ortega’s wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, and of a former guerrilla commander, Edén Pastora, hit their marks. . . . Ortega’s relentless concentration of power has brutalized Nicaragua and darkened the imagination of one of its most creative minds."—Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs
(see below for full review)
Arts Fuse Review: "A Thriller That's an Act of Political Courage"
NYTimes Author Profile: "A Nicaraguan Novelist Betrayed by the Revolution He Helped Build"
For Volume One, The Sky Weeps for Me, go here.
For Volume Two, No One Weeps for Me Now, go here.
For all three volumes as a set (20% discount), go here.
"This wrenching political thriller is a thinly veiled critique of the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega and his brutal repression of large-scale protests in 2018. Ramírez’s hard-hitting novel has been banned in Nicaragua, and Ortega has stripped the prolific, high-profile author of his Nicaraguan citizenship. When Ortega served as president in the 1980s, Ramírez was his vice president but was ultimately marginalized by political intrigues within the once revolutionary Sandinista Party. In Dead Men Cast No Shadows, Ramírez’s political disillusionment, evident in his earlier writings, has deepened into an anguished sorrow. His vivid, well-drawn characters—often former revolutionary fighters—have turned opportunistic, deceitful, even savage. His stinging takedowns of Ortega’s wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, and of a former guerrilla commander, Edén Pastora, hit their marks. He also calls out the Catholic Church for accommodating the increasingly repressive regime. Ortega’s relentless concentration of power has brutalized Nicaragua and darkened the imagination of one of its most creative minds."— Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs
“Dead Men Cast No Shadows is an enormously entertaining novel about responses to perfidy in high places by one of the most prominent writers in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a courageous act of political defiance; Ramírez has paid a painful price for simply putting pen to paper to tell the truth. . . . He examines a shameful period in Nicaraguan history through the lens of a police/detective yarn and he succeeds magnificently, weaving an intriguing narrative out of the return of valiant ‘Inspector’ Dolores Morales (the protagonist of The Managua Trilogy) to Nicaragua from exile in Honduras.”— Brooks Geikan, The Arts Fuse
“Dead Men Cast No Shadows is an enormously entertaining novel about responses to perfidy in high places by one of the most prominent writers in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a courageous act of political defiance; Ramírez has paid a painful price for simply putting pen to paper to tell the truth. . . . He examines a shameful period in Nicaraguan history through the lens of a police/detective yarn and he succeeds magnificently, weaving an intriguing narrative out of the return of valiant ‘Inspector’ Dolores Morales (the protagonist of The Managua Trilogy) to Nicaragua from exile in Honduras.”— Brooks Geikan, The Arts Fuse
to come