Octavio Paz was born 100 years ago. Paz was a Mexican writer, poet and diplomat and the winner of the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. Paz was born to Octavio Paz Solórzano and Josefina Lozano. His father was an active supporter of the Revolution against the Díaz regime. Paz was raised in the village of Mixcoac (now a part of Mexico City) by his mother Josefina (daughter of Spanish immigrants), his aunt Amalia Paz, and his paternal grandfather Ireneo Paz, a liberal intellectual, novelist, publisher and former supporter of President Porfirio Díaz. He studied at Colegio Williams. When he was five years he spent a year in Los Angeles with his family. Paz was introduced to literature early in his life through the influence of his grandfathers library, filled with classic Mexican and European literature. During the 1920s, he discovered the European poets Gerardo Diego, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Antonio Machado, Spanish writers who had a great influence on his early writings. As a teenager in 1931, under the influence of D. H. Lawrence, Paz published his first poems, including Cabellera. Two years later, at the age of 19, he published Luna Silvestre (Wild Moon), a collection of poems. In 1932, with some friends, he founded his first literary review, Barandal. By 1939, Paz considered himself first and foremost a poet. In 1945, he wrote El Laberinto de la Soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude), a groundbreaking study of Mexican identity and thought. In 1952, he travelled to India for the first time and, in the same year, to Tokyo, as chargé daffaires, and then to Geneva, in Switzerland. He returned to Mexico City in 1954, where he wrote his great poem Piedra de sol (Sunstone) in 1957 and Libertad bajo palabra (Liberty under Oath), a compilation of his poetry up to that time. In 1962 he was named Mexicos ambassador to India. A collection of his poems (written between 1957 and 1987) was published in 1990. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In India he met the Hungryalist poets and was of immense help to them during their 35 month long trial. He died of cancer in 1998 at age 84.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 04:04:29 +0000