Vanguardia movement

In 1931 Cuadra, along with José Coronel Urtecho, Joaquín Pasos, and other writers, founded the Vanguardia literary movement in Granada.^[3]

Later career

Cuadra's Poemas nicaragüenses was published in 1934. He opposed the American intervention against Augusto César Sandino in the 1930s and broke with the Somoza dynasty in the 1940s.

In 1954 he became co-director of La Prensa newspaper alongside his cousin and partner, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Chamorro was assassinated by Somoza supporters in 1978.^[1] Cuadra was briefly jailed in 1956 for his opposition to the Somoza's régime.^[4] In 1961 he became editor of the influential journal El Pez y La Serpiente (The Fish and the Serpent),^[5] which was highly influential in Latin America.

Cuadra became an outspoken advocate for Nicaragua's poor, embracing liberation theology and other intellectual currents which the Somoza government considered subversive.^[1] He later criticized the post-1979 Sandinista National Liberation Front régime for stifling the independence of Nicaragua's culture.^[6] For several years thereafter, he lived in self-imposed exile in Costa Rica and Texas.

In 1995 Cuadra was Honored with an honorary doctorate degree ^[7] by Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

Death

He died on January 2, 2002, in Managua, following a respiratory illness. Cuadra was buried on January 4 in Granada, where he spent the majority of his life.^[4]