Claribel Alegría was born Clara Isabel Alegría Vides on May 12, 1924 in Estelí, Nicaragua, of Daniel Alegría, a Nicaraguan doctor of humble origins, and Ana María Vides, a Salvadorian from an oligarchical coffee plantation family. Alegría lived in Santa Ana, El Salvador, during her childhood, in her grandparents’ house, because the family was forced into exile as a result of her father’s support of Augusto César Sandino, an important opponent of the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua. Sandino’s actions would inspire the Sandinista Revolution in the 1970s. Alegría has spent most of her life in a self-imposed exile from El Salvador, which she left at the age of 18. She calls herself a “cementerio apátrida” [a cemetery without a fatherland] in the poem “Éramos tres” (
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Citation: Lavoie, Sophie M.. "Claribel Alegría". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 July 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13363, accessed 03 December 2024.]
