Celebrating Ernesto Cardenal is highlighting his power to challenge our times

This year will celebrate the centenary of Ernesto Cardenal’s birth (1925-2020), one of the most influential poets in Latin American literature. His work, which ranges from poetry to philosophy, theology, politics and the visual arts, is characterized by a deep social and spiritual commitment.

Throughout his life, Cardenal, also a priest, guerrilla, writer and translator, remained faithful to the values ​​that supported his verses: social justice, an intense spirituality and a tireless search for the truth.

On the occasion of the anniversary, which falls on January 20, the Ernesto Cardenal Foundation, in charge of preserving his legacy, organized an extensive program of activities that includes editorial launches, keynote conferences and talks, with the aim of disseminating his work and ensuring May his thoughts continue to live on in new generations.

In interview with The Day, María Ángeles Pérez López, academic director of the aforementioned institution, pointed out that “celebrating the centenary of Ernesto Cardenal is highlighting his validity and his ability to challenge our time.

“He was present in the most crucial debates and issues of the second half of the 20th century and until his death. We want young people to read it and get to know it, in addition to delving into the various fields in which Cardenal’s work is irreplaceable.

We seek to spread their constant commitment to social justice, spirituality and love as the engine of the universe.

One of the most notable projects is the publication of scattered prose, monumental compilation of all of Cardenal’s prose writings. Through short essays, chronicles and autobiographical texts, the relationship between science and spirit, the mystical and the cosmic, as well as the influences of masters such as Lao Tzu, Heraclitus and his mentor, Thomas Merton, are explored.

The launch of the work will take place during the second half of January.

We will also organize high-level meetings that allow us to analyze the validity of Cardenal’s work from perspectives such as ecocriticism and spirituality, two fundamental aspects of his thought.added Pérez López.

These meetings will have the participation of experts in the poet’s work and will be aimed at the international academic community, he added.

Another of the most relevant events of the commemorative cycle will be an academic conference that will be held at a Spanish university, in which the participation of writers, researchers and thinkers who have dedicated a large part of their lives to the study of the work of the Nicaraguan poet.

As a preview of what is to come, on December 26, the Ernesto Cardenal foundation shared a fragment of the poem Children of the starsrecited by prominent figures such as the poet and novelist Gioconda Belli, the translator Raquel Lanseros and the musician El Niño de Elche, among others. The video is available on the website bit.ly/4204kpy.

The entire universe is made of light, the light that travels through the abysses of space, the same light that shines in the human heartis one of the verses that Cardenal dedicated to reflecting on the nature of existence.

Pérez López stressed her intention to contribute everything that, as a Hispanic American and a poet passionate about Cardenal’s work, is within her reach.

“In his latest texts, such as ‘Prayer for Marilyn Monroe’, ‘Psalms’ and ‘Children of the Stars’, the poet offered a cosmic hug that unites the billions of stars, the planet we inhabit and each of its inhabitants,” he concluded.

In addition to his exceptional literary legacy, Ernesto Cardenal was a man of action. His participation in the Sandinista revolution, as Minister of Culture of the revolutionary government of Nicaragua, was crucial for the development of culture and the arts in his country.

As an exponent of Liberation Theology, a current that seeks to integrate Christian principles with the fight against social injustices in Latin America, the theologian committed himself to the most disadvantaged, and his life was an example of service and sacrifice in pursuit of justice. .

From Managua to UNAM

Ernesto Cardenal began his studies in Managua. Between 1942 and 1946 he studied literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

In 1983, he starred in an episode that captured worldwide attention. During an official visit to Nicaragua, John Paul II severely reprimanded him in front of television cameras, while the poet remained kneeling. The then Pope reproached him for the propagation of apostate doctrines and his connection with the Sandinista government. In 2005 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

During his visit to our country in December 2014, when he received a tribute and celebrated his 90th birthday with a poetic recital at the Palace of Fine Arts, Ernesto Cardenal declared in an interview with this newspaper that Mexico made me revolutionary (The Day 11/12/14).

In 2019, on his last visit to this country, the intellectual was honored at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he explained that his poetry was of a small greatness. And it is, for extra-literary reasons: because it is for the poor and for social justice. To improve the world.

Born in Granada, Ernesto Cardenal Martínez died on March 1, 2020 in Managua, at the age of 95, due to health complications.