this period, he lived in Managua but traveled extensively. He married his wife, Gertrudis "Tulita" Guerrero Mayorga, in 1964. He has three children: Sergio, María, and Dorel and eight grandchildren. In June 2021, he was forced into exile during repression of the opposition in the lead-up to the 2021 Nicaraguan general election; the government issued a warrant for his arrest in September. In February 2023, the Nicaraguan government stripped him, along with 93 other people, of his nationality. The United Nations Refugee Agency called the move "arbitrary" and said "[t]he exercise of fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly or other rights associated with a person’s political views, can never justify the deprivation of nationality." Writings Ramírez began his literary career as a short story writer. His first story, "The student", was published in 1960 in Ventana, a magazine in León. His first book, published three years later, was a collection of stories, but the following, published in 1970, was a full-length novel. Since then, he has alternated these genres with essays and journalism. His international breakthrough came in 1998 when he won the Alfaguara Prize with his novel Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea. In 1990, he founded La Quincena, a political journal based in Managua that would be published for ten years. He is presently a columnist for La Prensa as well as several newspapers around the world, including El País, La Jornada, El Nacional, El Tiempo and La Opinión. He is also the Director of Carátula, a Central American cultural e-magazine. In January 2000, he was awarded the first "José María Arguedas Narrative Prize" from the Casa de las Américas. He has taught at the University of Maryland from 1999 to 2000 and again in 2001, and has been visiting professor at various major universities in the United States and Europe. He is also the President of , the most important literary festival in the region. On 16 November 2017, Ramírez won the Spanish Ministry of Culture's Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world. In 2018, the Council of Ministers of Spain granted Spanish citizenship to Ramírez. In February 2023, Ramírez was stripped of Nicaraguan citizenship by the Nicaraguan authorities. His 2021 novel, Tongolele no sabía bailar (Tongolele Didn’t Know How to Dance) is a detective novel examining the 2018 protests. Copies of the book were seized by Nicaraguan customs officials. Awards