Cuadra, Pablo Antonio

▪ 2003

      Nicaraguan poet (b. Nov. 4, 1912, Managua, Nic.—d. Jan. 2, 2002, Managua), was a leading exponent of the vanguardia, a literary movement that emerged in the early 1930s and sought to foster the native literary traditions of Nicaragua while at the same time incorporating them into the international literary vanguard. His Poemas nicaragüenses, 1930–1933 (1934) affirmed the customs, speech, and daily life of Nicaraguans and was the first book of verse dedicated to the new movement. Besides writing poetry, Cuadra edited several important literary journals, notably El pez y la serpiente from 1961, and from 1954 he served with Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal as coeditor of the influential newspaper La prensa. Cuadra became sole editor of the paper after Chamorro was assassinated in 1978, and he continued to espouse his political beliefs in verse, essays, and plays.

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