Gabriela Mistral (1889-1967), Chile's 'other' great poet of the
twentieth century, is little known outside the Spanish-speaking
world, and unlike Pablo Neruda has not been extensively translated
into English. She deserves better, particularly as the first Latin
American recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1945), and
this selection of her poetry is designed to introduce her to an
English-speaking public. Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in the Elqui
valley in the 'little north' of Chile, she became a schoolteacher
at the age of fifteen and went on to become an educator of
international renown, an architect of educational reform in Mexico,
and a cultural administrator at the League of Nations. She began
publishing prose and verse pieces in newspapers and reviews at
about the same age. Four major collections of her poems were
published in her lifetime: Desolacion (Desolation) in 1922, Ternura
(Tenderness) in 1924, Tala (Felling) in 1938, and Lagar (Wine
Press) in 1954, followed by Poema de Chile published after her
death. Poems from each of these five collections are included here.
The landscape and people of her native Chile are a constant theme
in her work, even though she lived most of her adult life away from
Chile, largely as a consul - unpaid for many years - in Europe,
Brazil, and the U.S.A., where she died. Her great love of children,
who were the main preoccupation of her life and whom she both
understood and respected; motherhood, and her lack of it; loss of
people she loved; religious faith, tested and at times unorthodox,
are other abiding themes. Her language is direct, passionate,
rooted in local usage. The whole of her work, in prose as well as
in verse, is a reflection of the absolute integrity of her life.
General
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