Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz , 1914-98, Mexican poet and critic. A diplomat, he lived abroad many years. Paz's books—revealing depth of insight, elegance, and erudition—place him among his generation's ablest writers. His works include the poetry collections La estación violenta (1956), Piedra de sol (1957), Alternating Current (tr. 1973), Configurations (tr. 1971), Early Poems: 1935-1955 (tr. 1974), and Collected Poems, 1957-1987 (1987); the volumes of essays The Labyrinth of Solitude (tr. 1963), The Other Mexico (tr. 1972); and El arco y la lira (1956; tr. The Bow and the Lyre, 1973); criticism; and studies of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcel Duchamp (both, tr. 1970). In 1971-72 Paz delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard; they are collected in Children of the Mire: Modern Poetry from Romanticism to the Avant-Garde (1974). In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Bibliography: See I. Ivask, ed., The Perpetual Present (1974).

Paz, Octavio (1914–98) Mexican poet and essayist. His work has gone through many phases, from Marxism to Surrealism and oriental philosophies. His poetry was collected in translation as The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957–1987 (1987). He has also written essays and literary criticism, including The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950). He received the 1990 Nobel Prize in literature.