Fiction
Tongolele did not know how to dance
by Sergio Ramírez
Sergio Ramiréz’s returns to the noir genre with a novel about Nicaragua and the end of the Revolution's dream. We are in the middle of the twenty-first century, in a Nicaragua in the mist of popular revolts, which are being brutally repressed by the government, backed by the sinister executive arm of the head of the secret services. Inspector Dolores Morales must confront from a distance that terri-ble being dubbed Tongolele, ultimately responsible for his exile in Honduras, and who, with coldness and cynicism and partly thanks to the divinatory advice of his mother, pulls many a string of the country's deranged politics.Sergio Ramírez’s skillful prose gradually reveals a murky network, full of secrets, betrayals and dark maneuvers that Inspector Morales will have to face, backed by the ineffable Lord Dixon, Doña Sofía Smith and the rest of his associates. For, in that never-ending convulsive Nicaragua, any misstep might result in the ultimate demise of anyone who dares confront in any manner of way, no matter how petty it might appear, the powers that be.
