Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea

<p><em>Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea</em> is one of Cuadra's most significant works. On one level it looks back knowingly at Homer's <em>Odyssey</em> but it also rejects the classical epic in favour of something humble or marginal a primitive or naïve epic with the characteristics of Cifar the sailor a restless seafarer and impenitent lover with an adventurous and bohemian soul who played the harp and the guitar admirably - but even with all his exuberant capacity for adventure Cifar was no more than a poor frustrated Odysseus who drowned like a humble Li Po on his way back from a party. Lake Cocibolca where Cifar's adventures take place is the repository of legends fables and mythical ctions. Lake Cocibolca shapes the destiny of Nicaraguans because it is the inner sea placed in Nicaragua's breast placed within its body as in a case of possession. Cuadra compares Cocibolca to a gigantic mirror a crystal of Nicaragua's history in which dreams and frustrations are reflected. (Excerpted from Daisy Zamora's <em>Introduction</em>).</p><p><br></p>