Clara Isabel AlegrÃÂa Vides (May 12, 1924 â January 25, 2018), also known by her pseudonym Claribel AlegrÃÂa, was a Nicaraguan-Salvadoran poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. She was awarded the 2006 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
AlegrÃÂa was born in EstelÃÂ, Nicaragua, to a Nicaraguan father, Daniel AlegrÃÂa, and a Salvadoran mother, Ana MarÃÂa Vides. Her cousin was activist Leonel Gómez Vides. When Claribel was nine months old, her father was sent into exile for protesting human rights violations occurring during the United States occupation of Nicaragua; as a result, Claribel grew up in Santa Ana, a city in western El Salvador, where her mother came from. Claribel AlegrÃÂa considered herself to be Nicaraguan-Salvadorean. Although she was too young to read or write, she began composing poetry at the age of six and dictated them to her mother, who would write them down. AlegrÃÂa consistently cited Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" as the impetus for becoming a poet. At the age of seventeen, she published her first poems in Repertorio Americano, a Central American cultural supplement. Soon after, Mexican educator José Vasconcelos arranged for AlegrÃÂa to attend finishing school in Hammond, Louisiana. In 1943, she moved to the United States and in 1948 received a B.A. in Philosophy and Letters from George Washington University. AlegrÃÂa was committed to nonviolent resistance. She had a close association with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and took control of the Nicaraguan government in 1979. AlegrÃÂa returned to Nicaragua in 1985 to aid in the reconstruction of Nicaragua.
AlegrÃÂa later lived in Managua, Nicaragua. She died on 25 January 2018, aged 93.
AlegrÃÂa's literary work reflects the style of the popular literary current in Central America during the 1950s and 1960s, "la generacion comprometida" (the committed generation). Like many other poets of her generation who are critical of their societies, she made claims for rights using a language which is often counter-literary.
AlegrÃÂa published many books of poetry: Casting Off (2003), Sorrow (1999), Umbrales (1996), and La Mujer del RÃÂo (1989). She also published novels and children's stories, as well as testimonies (often in collaboration with her husband, DJ "Bud" Flakoll), such as They Won't Take Me Alive.