Born: 12 May 1924, Nicaragua
Died: 25 January 2018
Country most active: Nicaragua
Also known as: Clara Isabel Alegría Vides
Claribel Alegría was a poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major literary voice in 20th century Central America. She won the 2006 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, among other awards.
When Claribel was nine months old, her father was exiled for protesting human rights violations during the United States occupation of Nicaragua. As a result, Claribel grew up in Santa Ana, in western El Salvador, where her mother was from. Although she was too young to read or write, she started composing poetry at age 6, dictating them to her mother, who would write them down. Alegría repeatedly credited Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” as her inspiration to become a poet. At 17, she published her first poems in Repertorio Americano, a Central American cultural supplement. In 1943, she moved to the United States, earning a BA in Philosophy and Letters from George Washington University in 1948.
Alegría’s literary work reflects the popular literary style of 1950s and 1960s Central America, “la generacion comprometida” (the committed generation). Like other poets of her generation who critique their societies, she fought for rights using a language which is often counter-literary.
Alegría published many books of poetry, including Casting Off (2003), Sorrow (1999), Umbrales (1996), and La Mujer del Río (1989). She also published novels and children’s stories, as well as testimonies (often in collaboration with her husband), such as They Won’t Take Me Alive.
Alegría was committed to nonviolent resistance and worked closely with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and took control of the Nicaraguan government in 1979. Alegría returned to Nicaragua in 1985 to aid in the country’s reconstruction, later moving to Managua, Nicaragua and living to the age of 93.