Sergio Ramírez describes to Wendy Guerra what the ideal Nicaragua would be like

LibreXpresión: Interview with the writer Sergio Ramírez 21:02

(CNN Spanish) -

Sergio Ramírez has been an important voice for Nicaraguan politics for decades, not only from his award-winning literature, but also with his participation in public life and his opinions critical of the current government.

In conversation with Wendy Guerra on "LibreXpresión", CNN's new digital space, the writer and former vice president of Nicaragua describes the ideal country he would like to see.

"A country where one can express their opinions without fear (...) Cast their vote with the confidence that this vote will decide the destiny of the country and that the votes will be counted with transparency and that the people will have the right to choose their own destiny, their own government, "said Ramírez.

The writer, winner of the Cervantes Prize in 2017, explains that the ideal Nicaragua is a country of public freedoms "where literary creation is respected, where books have pre-eminence, culture has pre-eminence."

"It is a truly democratic country that we have had very rarely in the history of Nicaragua," he concludes.

Ramírez, who was vice president of Nicaragua between 1985 and 1990 during Daniel Ortega's first government, is in exile after Ortega himself tried to arrest him and ban his most recent book.

This is how the ideal Nicaragua would be, according to Sergio Ramírez 1:28

The charges against him: "They made laws against the people they wanted to put in prison"

In September, the Nicaraguan Prosecutor's Office ordered the arrest of Ramírez for alleged conspiracy to undermine national integrity by committing alleged acts that promote and incite hatred and violence.

The prosecution also points to Ramírez, who rejects all the charges, of having received funds from the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation through the Luisa Mercado Foundation.

The directors of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation face a judicial process for alleged misappropriation and money laundering.

Ramírez had appeared before the Prosecutor's Office on June 1 in the case that that organization continues against directors of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation for alleged money laundering.

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At the time, Ramírez said that the funds were managed with absolute transparency.

The writer, who is in

exile in Costa Rica, told Wendy War in Nicaragua "ordered to make a series of laws 

 to load, redundant, these charges on the shoulders of everyone who wanted to

imprison "and that they are" inventions of minds little trained for imagination. "

The meaning of the Alfaguara Prize for Sergio Ramírez

Sergio Ramírez, writer and former vice president from Nicaragua, won the Alfaguara Novel Prize in 1998 with his work "

", an award he shared with Cuban Eliseo Alberto and his novel "

".

In "LibreXpresión", Ramírez tells what he thought when he received the award and highlights that this recognition meant "the opportunity to leave behind what had been my life in politics, not my political life, but my life in politics and to resume literature".

"This award put me on a different platform and from then on I could begin to speak like the true writer that I was, like the true writer that I felt."

The meaning of the Alfaguara Prize for Sergio Ramírez 1:43

Sergio Ramirez