International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Ernesto Cardenal was a leader in the effort to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Garcia dictatorship in Nicaragua. Born into a wealthy family in Granada, Cardenal attended Catholic schools run by Christian Brothers and Jesuits and joined a circle of Nicaraguans opposed to the Somoza dictatorship. In 1942 Cardenal entered the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. After receiving a licentiate (master's degree) in letters in 1947, he went to New York where he studied literature for two years at Columbia University. Following another year of European travel and study in Spain, he returned to Nicaragua in 1950. By this time, he was already receiving notice for his romantic and political poetry. For the next seven years he ran a small publishing company and a bookstore in Managua, while continuing to build his reputation as a poet. In 1954 he was part of a group that planned an attack on the presidential palace. The so-called April Rebellion was aborted, however, when the Somoza government discovered the plot. This episode provided him with subject matter for his La hora cero (1960). In 1957, after experiencing a religious conversion, he entered Our Lady of Gethsemane Trappist monastery in Kentucky. There he developed a close friendship with the monk-scholar and poet Thomas Merton, who served as his novice master and spiritual director. He was not permitted to write ... log in or subscribe to read full text