Ruben Dario month

Instituto Cervantes in Manchester and Leeds and the Embassy of Nicaragua in the United Kingdom dedicate January to universal poet, Rubén Darío, to celebrate the recent publication of Rubén Darío. Selected Poems (Shearsman books, 2020), translated by the Hispanist, Adam Feinstein. In order to make Dario's literature known, we organise a series of activities aimed at better understanding the Nicaraguan poet from different perspectives and reaching different ages.

Rubén Darío was born in the Nicaraguan city of San Pedro de Metapa (now Ciudad Darío) and was a multifaceted poet and diplomat who is the leading representative of modernism in the Spanish language. He was a "prince of Spanish letters" who had a great influence on Hispanic poetry in the 20th century. An inveterate traveller through America and Europe, during his stay in Spain he had a great influence on those young poets who would later become well known, such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán or Jacinto Benavente, among others. His influence can also be seen in poets and authors of Hispanic literature such as César Vallejo, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel García Márquez or Jorge Luis Borges. Among his fundamental books stand out Azul (1888) Prosas profanas y otros poemas (1896) and Canto de vida y esperanza (1905).