Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez was elected on Thursday to occupy chair L at the Royal Spanish Academy, vacant since the death of Mario Vargas Llosa in April 2025.
The closed-door vote took place during the academy's plenary session in Madrid. Ramírez was the sole candidate and received support from academics Víctor García de la Concha, Luis Mateo Díez and director Santiago Muñoz Machado.
The new member has a maximum of two years to deliver his inaugural address. Ramírez, winner of the 2017 Cervantes Prize and author of more than seventy books, has lived in exile in Spain since 2021 after being stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality.
In 2023 the regime of Daniel Ortega revoked his citizenship. A group of 214 intellectuals from several countries backed his candidacy against objections from some Sandinism victims.
