Octavio Paz facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Octavio Paz
Paz in 1988
Born	Octavio Paz Lozano (1914-03-31)March 31, 1914 Mexico City, Mexico
Died	April 19, 1998(1998-04-19) (aged 84) Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation	Writer poet diplomat
Period	1931–1965
Literary movement	Surrealism existentialism
Notable awards	Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1981) Nobel Prize in Literature (1990)
Spouse	Elena Garro (1937–1959)

Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a famous Mexican poet and diplomat. A diplomat is someone who represents their country in other nations. Paz won many important awards for his writing. These included the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Early Life and First Poems

Octavio Paz was born near Mexico City, Mexico. His family was well-known for being involved in politics. His grandfather, Ireneo Paz, was a journalist and started several newspapers. Octavio's father, Octavio Paz Solórzano, supported a revolutionary leader named Emiliano Zapata.

Young Octavio spent a lot of time with his grandfather. His family faced money problems after the Mexican Revolution. They even moved to Los Angeles for a short time before returning to Mexico. Paz had blue eyes, and other children sometimes thought he was a foreigner.

Paz discovered literature early in his life. His grandfather's library was full of classic books from Mexico and Europe. In the 1920s, he found Spanish writers like Juan Ramón Jiménez. These writers greatly influenced his early poems.

Becoming a Young Writer

When he was a teenager in 1931, Paz published his first poems. Two years later, at age 19, he released Luna Silvestre ("Wild Moon"). This was a collection of his poems. In 1932, he and his friends started their first literary magazine, Barandal.

Paz studied law and literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. During this time, he met poets who had left-wing political views, like Pablo Neruda. In 1936, Paz stopped his law studies. He moved to Yucatán to work at a school for the children of farmers and workers.

There, he started writing a long poem called "Entre la piedra y la flor" ("Between the Stone and the Flower"). This poem explored the lives of Mexican farmers under powerful landlords. It was influenced by the poet T. S. Eliot.

Travels and New Ideas

In July 1937, Paz went to Spain for a writers' conference. He showed his support for the Republican side against the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. While in Europe, he also visited Paris. There, he learned about the surrealist movement. Surrealism is an art and writing style that explores dreams and the unconscious mind. This movement had a big impact on him.

After returning to Mexico, Paz helped start a literary magazine called Taller ("Workshop") in 1938. He wrote for this magazine until 1941. In 1937, he married Elena Garro, who became a famous Mexican writer. They had a daughter named Helena and later divorced in 1959.

In 1943, Paz received a special scholarship called a Guggenheim Fellowship. He used it to study at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States. Two years later, he joined the Mexican diplomatic service. He worked in New York City for a while.

In 1945, he was sent to Paris. There, he wrote his famous book El Laberinto de la Soledad ("The Labyrinth of Solitude"). This book explored what it means to be Mexican. It described how Mexicans often hide their true feelings behind "masks of solitude."

Paz traveled a lot as a diplomat. In 1952, he visited India and Japan. He also worked in Geneva, Switzerland. He returned to Mexico City in 1954. There, he wrote his great poem "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone") in 1957. He also published Libertad bajo palabra (Liberty under Oath), which was a collection of his poems. In 1962, he became Mexico's ambassador to India.

Later Life and Important Works

While he was the Ambassador of Mexico to India, Paz wrote more important works. These included El mono gramático (The Monkey Grammarian) and Ladera este (Eastern Slope). In India, he met many writers and influenced them.

In 1965, he married Marie-José Tramini, a French woman. She remained his wife for the rest of his life. In 1968, Paz resigned from his job as a diplomat. He did this to protest the Mexican government's actions against student demonstrators in Tlatelolco.

After staying in Paris for a short time, he returned to Mexico in 1969. He started his own magazine called Plural (1970–1976). He worked with other writers from Mexico and Latin America.

Paz also taught at several universities. He was a professor at Cambridge University and Cornell University. In 1974, he gave lectures at Harvard University. His book Los hijos del limo ("Children of the Mire") came from these lectures. When the Mexican government closed Plural in 1975, Paz started another cultural magazine called Vuelta. He was the editor of Vuelta until he died in 1998.

Awards and Political Views

Octavio Paz won the 1977 Jerusalem Prize for literature. This award focuses on the theme of individual freedom. In 1980, he received an honorary degree from Harvard. In 1982, he won the Neustadt Prize.

Paz was good friends with the novelist Carlos Fuentes for a long time. However, they disagreed in the 1980s about the Sandinistas, a political group in Nicaragua. Paz was against them, while Fuentes supported them.

In 1990, a collection of Paz's poems was published. In the same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This is one of the highest honors a writer can receive.

Octavio Paz died of cancer on April 19, 1998, in Mexico City.

His Writings and Ideas

Octavio Paz was a very productive author and poet. He published many works during his life. Many of his writings have been translated into other languages. His early poetry was influenced by different ideas. These included Marxism (a political and economic theory), surrealism, and existentialism (a philosophy about human existence). He was also influenced by religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was called a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry. This was said when he received his Nobel Prize. His later poetry explored themes like love, time, and Buddhism. He also wrote poems about modern painting, dedicating them to artists like Marcel Duchamp.

As an essayist, Paz wrote about many topics. These included Mexican politics, Aztec art, and anthropology. His book-length essay, The Labyrinth of Solitude, looked deeply into the minds of his fellow Mexicans. He described them as hiding behind "masks of solitude." He believed their identity was lost between their ancient pre-Columbian and Spanish cultures. This book is very important for understanding Mexican culture. It greatly influenced other Mexican writers.

Plays and Other Works

Paz wrote a play called La hija de Rappaccini in 1956. The story is about a young student who explores a beautiful garden. He discovers that the professor's daughter, Beatrice, and the garden itself are poisonous. Paz based this play on a short story by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. He also used ideas from Indian and Japanese theater. The first performance of the play was designed by the Mexican painter Leonora Carrington.

Many of Paz's other works have been translated into English. These include essay collections like Alternating Current and Configurations. His famous book The Labyrinth of Solitude was also translated. He also wrote critical studies and biographies. One important biography was about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She was a Mexican nun, poet, and thinker from the 17th century.

His poetry collections include ¿Águila o sol? (1951) and Piedra de Sol (1957). Eliot Weinberger is one of the main translators of Paz's poetry into American English.

Paz's Political Ideas

Octavio Paz first supported the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. But he became disappointed after learning that one of his friends was killed by secret police. In the early 1950s, he began to speak out against totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is a system where the government has total control over people's lives. He especially criticized Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union.

In his magazines Plural and Vuelta, Paz showed how human rights were violated in communist countries, like Castro's Cuba. This made many people on the Latin American left angry with him. Paz still saw himself as a man of the left. However, he believed in a democratic, "liberal" left, not one that was strict and unfair. He also criticized the Mexican government and its ruling party.

Paz was a social democrat. This means he believed in a mix of democracy and social programs. He became more supportive of liberal ideas, which focus on individual freedom. But he never gave up his earlier ideas about romance and equality. He was a complex thinker. He believed in freedom and democracy, respected traditions, and wished for more equality.

In 1990, after the Berlin Wall fell, Paz and his colleagues invited writers and thinkers to Mexico City. They discussed the end of communism. This event was called The experience of freedom.

Paz also criticized the Zapatista uprising in 1994. He supported a "military solution" to bring order back to the region. He signed a letter that called the government's actions "legitimate" to restore peace in Chiapas.

His First Literary Experiences

Paz was very impressed by The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. This poem was translated into Spanish and published in a magazine in 1930. Because of this, Paz became interested in both poetry and prose (regular writing). He saw it as a "game of reflections between poetry and prose."

When he was 16, in 1931, he wrote his first published article, "Ethics of the Artist." In it, he wondered about the artist's duty. He asked if art should have a purpose or just be "pure art." He believed that true art has a purpose and meaning.

The magazine Barandal started in August 1931. Octavio Paz and his friends Rafael López Malo, Salvador Toscano, and Arnulfo Martínez Lavalle created it.

Awards and Honors

• Inducted Member of Colegio Nacional, Mexican highly selective academy of arts and sciences 1967
• Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
• National Prize for Arts and Sciences (Mexico) in Literature 1977
• Honorary Doctorate National Autonomous University of Mexico 1978
• Honorary Doctorate (Harvard University) 1980
• Ollin Yoliztli Prize 1980
• Miguel de Cervantes Prize 1981
• Nobel Literature Prize in 1990
• Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic 1991
• Premio Mondello (Palermo, Italy)
• Alfonso Reyes International Prize
• Neustadt International Prize for Literature 1982
• Jerusalem Prize
• Menéndez Pelayo International Prize
• Alexis de Tocqueville Prize
• Xavier Villaurrutia Award

List of Works

Poetry collections

• 1933: Luna silvestre
• 1936: No pasarán!
• 1937: Raíz del hombre
• 1937: Bajo tu clara sombra y otros poemas sobre España
• 1941: Entre la piedra y la flor
• 1942: A la orilla del mundo, compilation
• 1949: Libertad bajo palabra
• 1954: Semillas para un himno
• 1957: Piedra de Sol (Sunstone)
• 1958: La estación violenta
• 1962: Salamandra (1958–1961)
• 1965: Viento entero
• 1967: Blanco
• 1968: Discos visuales
• 1969: Ladera Este (1962–1968)
• 1969: La centena (1935–1968)
• 1971: Topoemas
• 1972: Renga: A Chain of Poems with Jacques Roubaud, Edoardo Sanguineti and Charles Tomlinson
• 1974: El mono gramático
• 1975: Pasado en claro
• 1976: Vuelta
• 1979: Hijos del aire/Airborn with Charles Tomlinson
• 1979: Poemas (1935–1975)
• 1985: Prueba del nueve
• 1987: Árbol adentro (1976–1987)
• 1989: El fuego de cada día, selection, preface and notes by Paz

Anthology

• 1966: Poesía en movimiento (México: 1915–1966), edition by Octavio Paz, Alí Chumacero, Homero Aridjis and Jose Emilio Pacheco

Translations by Octavio Paz

• 1957: Sendas de Oku, by Matsuo Bashō, translated in collaboration with Eikichi Hayashiya
• 1962: Antología, by Fernando Pessoa
• 1974: Versiones y diversiones (Collection of his translations of a number of authors into Spanish)

Translations of his works

• 1952: Anthologie de la poésie mexicaine, edition and introduction by Octavio Paz; translated into French by Guy Lévis-Mano
• 1958: Anthology of Mexican Poetry, edition and introduction by Octavio Paz; translated into English by Samuel Beckett
• 1971: Configurations, translated by G. Aroul (and others)
• 1974: The Monkey Grammarian (El mono gramático); translated into English by Helen Lane)
• 1995: The Double Flame (La Llama Double, Amor y Erotismo); translated by Helen Lane

Images for kids

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  Octavio Paz

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  II International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture.

See also

In Spanish: Octavio Paz para niños