Salman Rushdie visited Nicaragua in 1986, seven years after the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The country was still in the making at that time, and the Sandinistas' efforts to form a new government were constantly being threatened and attacked by its powerful neighbor to the north, the U.S., in its support for the Contras. Rushdie tried to keep hopeful throughout this book that the Sandinistas would succeed in forming a democratic country, but he also was concerned about the shuttering of a powerful newspaper, La Prensa . He worried that if freedom of the press continued to be curtailed, that didn't bode well for the country.

During his time in the country, Rushie met many poets and writers (including Gioconda Belli and Sergio Ramírez), of which Nicaragua has plenty, and some of the famous revolutionaries who brought about the end of the Somoza dynasty, including Daniel Ortega, who is has been the president since 2007. Sadly, Rushdie's worries have been borne out by now, but at the time he had hope.

He said: "I had left Nicaragua unfinished, so to speak, a country in which the violent, opposing forces of creation and destruction were in violent collision." And: "In the real world, there were monsters and giants; but there was also the immeasurable power of the will. It was entirely possible that Nicaragua's will to survive might prove stronger than the American weapons. We would just have to see."

It's always interesting to read about a moment in time during which the course of history could go in any number of directions, and then to see in retrospect, how it actually unfolded. We all hold out for hope like the words of Silvia, who sat beside Rushdie on the plane out of the country: "The revolution exists. It has to exist, or there's no hope."

Excellent country portrait by an incisive thinker - presents a different viewpoint on Nicaragua

Este fue el primer libro de Salman Rushdie que habia leido. Me llamó la atención porque habia visitado Nicaragua un par de meses antes de que lo econtrara en una librería en San Salvador. Entonces, no lo leí por el autor sino el tema.
Este libro consiste de sus entrevistas y observaciones del gobierno Nicaraguense en la época de la guerra civil. Sin embargo, si piensas que el Sr. Rushdie es periodista, este libro te va a decepcionar porque a veces parece que el autor tiene predisposición hacia el gobierno sandanista de Nicaragua -- aunque lucha justificar la censura de la prensa. Es interesante leer ante todo porque Daniel Ortega que era presidente en las ochenta cuando se escribió el libro es presidente hoy en dia (después de un periódo largo de no ser presidente). Entonces, éste es un ejemplo en Centroamérica en el cual los revolucionarios ganaron, se convertieron en políticos, y siguieron participando en el proceso democrático. (También, es el caso en El Salvador, pero el FMLN solo acaba de ganar la presidencia en 2009...) Estes ejemplos de ex-guerrilleros que llegan al poder me interesan mucho mas que nada porque quiero que los revolucionarios demuestren una manera más humanitaria de gobernar. Lo confieso, quiero creer en ellos, pero primero necesito ver las promesas cumplidas. En Nicaragua, hasta el momento, no tengo muchas quejas pero entiendo que hay mucho más que hacer.
La otra cosa que me interesó mucho fue aprender de la involucramiento de los EEUU en la guerra civil de Nicaragua. Por supuesto, ya lo sabía, pero todavía es increíble pensar en la situación -- pequeñita Nicaragua contra los EEUU! Aunque los EEUU finaziaron a la Contra, todavía no puedo creer que no atacaran el país directamente con el ejército americano. (Gracias a dios no pasó.) El temor del comunismo en ese época era tan exagerado...
Al fin, fue el contexto que me gustó en este libro, no la redacción del Sr. Rushdie. Pero lo recomiendo porque todo de nosotros deben tratar de comprender la historia que Centroamérica lastimosamente ha vivido.

Around-the-world #143: Nicaragua

Armchair Explorer - Nicaragua

This was a very nice, balanced travel memoir set in the time of intense political turmoil. I think it would have benefited however from extensive footnoting and explanations of the setting and a historical timeline.

this is just not the kind of book i read and i rate solely my on personal enjoyment. I feel like all the information that was being thrown at me was not being thrown in a way that consistently grabbed my attention and because of that I feel like after reading this whole book I cannot tell you one new fact I learned about Nicaragua.

Some red baiting and western chauvinism but overall very good

Rushdie visited Nicaragua in 1986. He arrived with strong political leanings that favored the Sandinista efforts. His heart was with the peasant underclass, with the revolutionary poets and priests, with those who resisted the oppression and greed of the Samosa government and the policies of the US in Central America. I enjoyed Rushdie’s nonfiction writing much more than I have enjoyed any of his magical realism. Even if not an unbiased look at what was happening in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s, his championing of Nicaragua’s martyrs and suffering masses shines a needed light on many that history has forgotten. 3.5 stars

I really liked this book. I lived in Nicaragua for two years and this is the only English language book that I've read that manages to convey the hope and the optimism that Nicaraguans describe feeling during those early Sandinista years.

This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. Salman wrote this after spending only 3 weeks with the Sandinistas and none with the Contras. In fairness, he does tell the readers in the preface where his sympathanies lied.

I didn't know much about Nicaragua or the Contra War of the 80s, as I was only in gradeschool at the time. I didn't pick this book up because I wanted to find out more about the topic either. I picked it up, because I thought it would a short novel I could finish off before the new year. I was the definition of a blank slate. Imagine my surprise when I realized that this was actually a work of non-fiction.

As a blank slate, I can't really rate this book based on how accurate Rushdie's depiction of the state of things was. I can only judge it on his prose, and his ability to explain what he is personally setting out to explain. On those terms, the book is very successful. I was very surprised that in such a brief work, I found myself comfortably knowledgable about most of the involved parties, including the Sandanistas, the east coast Misurasata, and various sects of the Contra movement. Rushdie's verdict in the end is an almost ambiguous one, coming hesitantly down on the side of the Sandanistas, with some reservations. Perhaps I'm naive, but his findings appeared to be the honest opinion of a neutral observer, and not any kind of liberal propaganda.

Outside of the politics, he also paints a picture of the citizens of the country, who are a resiliant and hopeful and poetic people. This jives pretty accurately with my impressions of various Central American friends from college, and the stories they shared about their lives.

Now, this book was written in 1987, and as a glimpse at that particular moment of time, I think this book is very effective. Rushdie sees a certain righteousness in the Sandanista movement, but warns that with power comes certain temptations, and admits that the leaders he met with were questionably equipped to deal with those temptations. The title, in fact, comes from a limerick in which a little girl wearing a smile rides away on a jaguar. When she returns, the girl is gone, and now the jaguar is wearing the smile. Far from being propaganda, Rushdie awknowledges with his title that the politics of Nicaragua are dangerous and ambiguous. History would show that neither the Sandanistas or the Contras or even the Americans who became involved turned out to be truely just in their actions.

But I guess that's always the way when politics and religion are concerned: people frequently end up doing the wrong things for the what they feel are the right reasons. "The Jaguar Smile" captures that pretty succinctly.