Sergio Ramírez Takes Seat L at the Real Academia Española

Sergio Ramírez joined the Real Academia Española (RAE) at 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 15, taking the seat L previously held by Mario Vargas Llosa. The 84-year-old Nicaraguan writer and former vice president assumed the chair in an investiture ceremony that formalized his entry into the institution.

Ramírez arrived at the ceremony walking with the aid of a cane. He admitted to nervousness about the physical demands of the event, citing a leg problem that makes climbing the steps of the podium difficult. He did not let it stop him.

Who is the new academician?

Ramírez won the Cervantes Prize, the highest honor in Spanish-language literature, in 2017. He began his public life in the Sandinista movement and served as vice president of Nicaragua. His trajectory since then has taken a darker turn: he went into exile in Spain in 2021, and in 2023 the government of Daniel Ortega stripped him of his Nicaraguan nationality.

The writer has spoken openly about what exile has cost him. He said the years away from his homeland have been a struggle to hold on to his own language and not lose it. For a novelist who writes in Spanish, that admission carries weight: the language is the tool, and exile put it at risk.

What does the speech say?

His investiture address carries the title "Un novelista ecuménico" — "An Ecumenical Novelist" — and is dedicated to Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel laureate who occupied seat L before him. The dedication links the two figures across generations of Latin American letters: Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian titan of the Boom, and Ramírez, the Nicaraguan who moved from revolutionary politics to literary recognition.

The ceremony itself is a quiet act of symbolism. An exiled writer, stateless by decree of his own government, enters the institution that guards the Spanish language he fought to keep. Ramírez said that fight was the defining feature of his years in Spain.

What does this change for Ramírez?

It gives him a formal platform in the country that took him in. The RAE seat places him among the custodians of the language he feared losing — a position of standing that no decree from Managua can revoke.

His Nicaraguan citizenship, however, remains withdrawn. The academy honors the writer; it cannot restore the nationality the Ortega government took away in 2023.