Octavio Paz (1914-1998)

Awarded the Prize “for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence humanistic integrity.”
Mexican poet writer. Paz was born on March 31, 1914 in Mexico City. He studied at the National University, but refused to take his degree. His first collection was published in 1933. He founded edited several important literary reviews. After World War II he became a diplomat in France, Japan, the United States, India, serving also as Mexico’s representative to UNESCO. He was a visiting professor at the universities of Texas, Austin, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; the Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies, Fellow of Churchill College Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University. Paz died on April 19, 1998 in Mexico.
Major Works:
The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950); Sun Stone (1957); Selected Poems (1979); One Earth, Four or Five W