Gabriela Mistral: Majestic Legacy of Latin American Poetry (+seeding)

On January 10, 1957, Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, Chilean poet, diplomat and teacher, better known as Gabriela Mistral, died. She was the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mistral was born in the city of San Isidro de Vicuña, Chile, on April 7, 1889, and was baptized with the name of Lucila María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga. Daughter of Petronila Alcayaga, dressmaker and teacher Juan Gerónimo Godoy, who abandoned the family when Gabriela was just 3 years old. Her half-sister, Emelina, took on the maintenance of the family, working as a teacher.

She is remembered because she wrote Sonnets of Death, a collection of poems with which she won first prize in the Flower Games literature contest. He changed his name, as a tribute to two of his favorite poets: the Italian Gabriele D'Annunzio and the Frenchman Frédéric Mistral.

In 1922, she left Chile for the first time, invited by the Mexican government, and from that moment on she began her itinerant journey through various countries of America and Europe, to share her thoughts and literary work with the inhabitants of the world.

On December 10, 1945, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, from King Gustav V of Sweden. In 1947, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Mills College of Oakland, California, and in 1951 she was awarded the National Prize for Literature.

Mazo News Team