A poetic map of the migratory reality of Nicaragua, with no possible return in “Los Nadie”

In February 2022, following Eduardo Galeanowith the title of one of his most famous poems, William Alexander GonzalezFrom Managua, Nicaraguahe won Antonio Carvajal Award distinguishes young poets. His poems were entered in the competition as “Nobody’s Children, Owners of Nothing”henceforth, has just been published under the definitive name of “The Nullities”a compilation that demonstrates his poetic maturity, through a voice made of absences, distances and tradition.

In this poem, Gonzalez presents raw and disturbing verses, a literary surgery with the scalpel of its Nicaragua in texts, moreover, full of social commitment. “The Nullities”, published under the imprint of Editorial Hyperion (2022), has been described as a nostalgic collection of poems in which the lost homeland is present.

Poems from Nicaragua are published in Spain. After leaving his country a few years ago, the author was able to see the printed promise of his award-winning work, a verse chronicle on migration, based on his own Gonzalez In Madrid, and a journey in which he collects his memories of adolescence and his transition to early adulthood.

“It’s a book about a lost yesterday, found with words. Nostalgia for the distant homeland seen in the mists of memory. The foreign steps of the Nicaraguan boy who writes, repeating his exile as a child. And the lost footsteps of exiles in the streets and squares of others, carrying their misery and their sorrows. Nomads, illegal immigrants. Nadies. Expatriates, exiles, the claw of distance planted in the heart. The slow rush of those walking in the opposite direction. The endless search for the lost identity, the fingerprints bleached from the hands of the mother. The burden of memories that only writing relieves when it hits rock bottom” Sergio Ramirez.

In “The Nullities”, the poetic nation that spreads through the pages comes and remains blurred in memory or submerged in the teachings of Ruben Dario, to whom the young poet appealed as a tutor in various compositions. Worms and worms become the weapons of William Alexander Gonzalez in which he recounts the struggle for subsistence, forced nomadism and also the marginality of an adoptive homeland.

In the first section, the young writer pays homage to the teachers of Lope de Vega schoolan evocation of childhood Gonzalez where his discovery of reading and the demand for free education converge. In sections like “The Foreign Iris” there “The Nullities”They challenge a host of nationalities and a cross section of low paid and unrecognized jobs, domestic workers, gang members, food deliverers and even vendors, a kaleidoscope of current Nicaraguan reality.

“Nullities It is a very urban book, which is why my teachers do not only belong to the most traditional literature, such as the poets of the golden age, the generation of 27 or Las Sinsombrero. So are today’s artists who make music, that’s why I quote some like ErgoPro, Gallinier, Fernando Costa, Erick Herve… I wanted to give it that current touch that also seems consistent with the theme”. William Alexander Gonzalez in interview with The generational position.

To the rhythm of the pages Alexander Gonzalez It is to rebuild a new homeland, built between the words, which are recited, stated by memory, which can be of love for teaching or of memory. In “The Nullities” The face of emigration and a vision of Spain are present, compatriots forced to perform tasks regardless of the title they have, the difficulties of paying rent also appear. Gonzalez addresses the love, pain, loss and desire for a better destiny for Nicaraguans spread across the globe.

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