Sergio Ramírez (Masatepe, Nicaragua, 1942) is part of the generation of writers that emerged after the Latin American Boom, and after a long, voluntary exile in Costa Rica and Germany, he set his literary career aside for a time to participate in the Sandinista Revolution. This movement overthrew the dictatorship of the Somoza dynasty; he then returned to writing with the novel Divine Punishment (1988, Dashiell Hammett Prize). Un baile de máscaras [A dance of masks] won the Laure Bataillon Prize for best foreign novel translated in France in 1998. His other works include Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea (1998), Mentiras verdaderas [True lies] (2001), the short story collections Catalina y Catalina (2001), El reino animal [The animal kingdom] (2007), and Flores oscuras [Dark flowers] (2013), as well as teh novels Sombras nada más [No more shadows] (2002), Mil y una muertes [One thousand one deaths] (2005), El cielo llora por mí [The sky cries for me] (2008), and La fugitiva [The fugitive] (2011), winner of the Bleu Metropole Prize in Montreal, Canada. He has also published his memoirs of the revolution, Adiós muchachos (1999), and a book of chronicles on writers and writing, Juan de Juanes (2014). He has been distinguished with many awards, including the José Donoso Prize for Spanish American Letters for the entirety of his literary work (Chile, 2011) and the International Carlos Fuentes Prize for Literary Creation in Spanish Language (Mexico, 2014). His books have been translated to more than fifteen languages.