Reading in the Ruins: At Ten, Sandinista Nicaragua Holds a Book Festival

READING IN THE RUINS: AT TEN, SANDINISTA NICARAGUA HOLDS A BOOK FESTIVAL / Karl Bermann ON JULY 19, 1989, NICARAGUA observed the tenth anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. As most anyone who pays attention to the news headlines might surmise, the recent record of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations endowed the occasion with particular significance. The Sandinistas have not been popular in Washington. Were their country situated in some half-forgotten corner of the globe, aU things being equal, Yankee opinion might not count for much. But since Nicaragua occupies real estate regarded by the United States as part of its "backyard," Uncle Sam's displeasure has translated into eight years of devastating trade embargo and even more devastating sponsorship of the Contra rebels. I returned to Nicaragua for the anniversary—to see what, if anything, was left to celebrate, and who would be doing the celebrating. I came also to attend the II International Book Festival— Nicaragua 89, which would begin in Managua the foUowing day. On the surface it seemed a non sequitur. How could this besieged and destitute country hold a book fair? Why would it want to? Book fairs are usuaUy trade gatherings where the pubUshing industry deals in rights, Ucenses, and distribution agreements. For a commercial event of that sort, Nicaragua is as unlikely a spot as one could conjure up. Yet I knew the world's presses in the last decade turned out countless books related to Central American troubles; I have been associated with four of them as author, editor, or contributor. Much of my life these ten years has revolved around Nicaragua, and books have been at the center of that involvement. I first visited the country in 1980. The feel of the recently ended war against the fifty-year Somoza dynasty stiU pervaded the countryside: the büghted fields were only then beginning to return to cultivation; in the battle-ravaged cities, many ruined buUdings had not yet been repaired or cleared away. Landscape and inhabitants alike stall bore the unmistakable stamp of festering poverty, irresponsible neglect, and sadistic abuse that were the haUmarks of Somozaism. 198 · The Missouri Review Karl Bermann But the revolution had loosed a genie of popular enthusiasm that was working its wUl everywhere—in new parks, in neighborhood street-cleaning and repaying projects, in homemade monuments to the faUen that sprouted on nearly every street corner—and in the mural paintings—chUdlike or articulate—that on every avaUable waU sought to exorcise the trauma of Nicaraguan history. In the government offices so recently vacated by Somoza's cronies, the youthful Sandinistas I met seemed out of place, as if they hardly knew what to do there. Yet aU had this enthusiasm, this improvisational spirit, this boundless optimism that infused even their sometimes schematic or mechanical exegeses of what lay ahead. I caught their enthusiasm and made it mine. Surprised and intrigued by the evidence of our own country's long and sordid role in the Nicaraguan past, I returned home resolved to foUow the trail of that involvement wherever it led, and to find its nexus with the present. In 1983 I quit a comfortable job to devote my fuU energies to the quest. Three years later it ended with Under the Big Stick, a book telling the story of the 138 years of Great Power meddUng and buUying that lay behind the Sandinistas' upstart impudence. But in 1989, years of writing, lecturing, and organizing had worn on me. Of necessity as well as choice, my work had turned increasingly to other themes—the market for Nicaragua material had become glutted and interest had waned. I stall closely foUowed developments there and in Washington, but five years had passed since my most recent visit. As blow foUowed blow, Td grown pessimistic about the Sandinistas' project. I knew they didn't stand a fair chance to show what they were about so long as our government was clubbing them on the head (wasn't that the point?). Yet it began to look Uke everything they did—save, perhaps, their miUtary effort—was doomed to faUure. Survival for them had become a grim exercise. If the Nicaraguans had their scars...