Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral, pseudonym of Lucila Godoy de Alcayaga (1889-1957), Chilean poet and stateswoman, who in 1945 became the first Latin American and the first female poet to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Born in Vicuña, Mistral became a noted educator. She traveled in Mexico, the United States, and Europe studying schools and methods of teaching. At varying times she was a visiting professor at several universities and colleges in the United States, including Barnard College, Middlebury College, and the University of Puerto Rico. For 20 years, beginning in 1933, she served as Chilean consul in various cities, including Madrid, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Nice, France; and Los Angeles, California. Besides being a prolific writer of poetry, Mistral also wrote prose, primarily on the behalf of society’s disenfranchised groups. She spoke out for increased social justice in Latin America and throughout the world.

Mistral’s poetry, which is full of warmth and emotion, frequently deals with the many variations of love—from intimate love to global love of humankind—and has been translated into English, French, Italian, German, and Swedish. Her works include Desolación (Desolation, 1922), Ternura (Tenderness, 1924), Tala (Destruction, 1938), and Lagar (The Wine Press, 1954). English-language collections of her poetry include Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957), translated by American writer Langston Hughes; A Gabriela Mistral Reader (1992); and Poemas de las Madres (The Mothers’ Poems, 1996), a selection of poems in both their original Spanish and their English translation. Elements of Mistral’s style and themes are found in the works of other Latin American writers such as Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz.