Dead Men Cast No Shadows

This wrenching political thriller is a thinly veiled critique of the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega and his brutal repression of large-scale protests in 2018. Ramírez’s hard-hitting novel has been banned in Nicaragua, and Ortega has stripped the prolific, high-profile author of his Nicaraguan citizenship. When Ortega served as president in the 1980s, Ramírez was his vice president but was ultimately marginalized by political intrigues within the once revolutionary Sandinista Party. In Dead Men Cast No Shadows, Ramírez’s political disillusionment, evident in his earlier writings, has deepened into an anguished sorrow. His vivid, well-drawn characters—often former revolutionary fighters—have turned opportunistic, deceitful, even savage. His stinging takedowns of Ortega’s wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, and of a former guerrilla commander, Edén Pastora, hit their marks. He also calls out the Catholic Church for accommodating the increasingly repressive regime. Ortega’s relentless concentration of power has brutalized Nicaragua and darkened the imagination of one of its most creative minds.