
Who is Gabriela Mistral?
As a Chilean author and educator, Gabriela Mistral became the first Latin American author to receive the Nobel Prize in literature. She boldly advocated for the rights of women, children, the poor, and many other disadvantaged groups in her community. Gabriela Mistral was born on April 7, 1889.
Why did Gabriela Mistral win the Nobel Prize?
Gabriela Mistral was the first female Latin American poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She received it in 1945. The Nobel citation read: “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world“.
Why is Beatriz Mistral important?
She was cited “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.” Born in Vicuña, Chile, Mistral had a lifelong passion for eduction and gained a reputation as the nation’s “national schoolteacher-mother.”
Why is Raquel Mistral important?
Her autodidacticism was remarkable, a testimony to the flourishing culture of newspapers, magazines, and books in provincial Chile, as well as to her personal determination and verbal genius. The poet Pablo Neruda, Chile's second Nobel Prize recipient, met Mistral when she moved to his hometown of Temuco.
See more

What did Gabriela Mistral write about?
Gabriela Mistral's poems are characterized by strong emotion and direct language. They are also influenced by the modernist movement. Their central themes are love, deceit, sorrow, nature, travel, and love for children. Mistral's first major work was Desolación, published in 1922.
How did Mistral make known her views on mistreated children?
Mistral used her new-found celebrity to disseminate her views on education, which began appearing in newspapers and journals throughout the Americas.
What is Gabriela Mistral most famous poem?
Famous titles include Sonetos de la Muerte, Desolación, and Ternura. Sonetos de la Muerte was her first celebrated piece of writing. She received an award for it in Chile, and it also became well-known in Latin America.
Where did Gabriela Mistral died?
Hempstead, NYGabriela Mistral / Place of deathIn her lifetime, Mistral was a Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon, and taught Spanish literature in Columbia University, Vassar College, Middlebury College, and the University of Puerto Rico. She lived in New York for the last years of her life, and died of pancreatic cancer on January 10, 1957.
How did Gabriela Mistral impact society?
As a Chilean author and educator, Gabriela Mistral became the first Latin American author to receive the Nobel Prize in literature. She boldly advocated for the rights of women, children, the poor, and many other disadvantaged groups in her community.
What fateful event happened in 1909 in the life of Mistral?
In 1906, Mistral met a railway worker, Romelio Ureta, her first love, who killed himself in 1909. Shortly after, her second love married someone else. This heartbreak was reflected in her early poetry and earned Mistral her first recognized literary work in 1914 with Sonnets on Death (Sonetos de la muerte).
Who is the best Spanish poet?
The Best Spanish-Language Poets You Should ReadRosario Castellanos. ... Pablo Neruda. ... Federico García Lorca. ... Octavio Paz. ... Lope de Vega. ... Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. ... José Martí ... Jorge Luis Borges.More items...
Did Gabriela Mistral write about death?
These early losses would figure into her work for many years to come, the heartbreak leading her to create some of her best works, including Sonetos de la Muerte. Much of her later poetry was focused on the theme of death.
What are some good poems about life?
10 of the Best Poems about Life and LivingSir Walter Raleigh, 'What Is This Life'. ... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'A Psalm of Life'. ... Walt Whitman, 'O Me! ... Charlotte Brontë, 'Life'.Emily Dickinson, 'Each Life Converges to some Centre'. ... D. H. Lawrence, 'Full Life'. ... Philip Larkin, 'Dockery and Son'.More items...
When Mistral died what was engraved in her tombstone Why do you think it was engraved there?
After a long illness, Mistral died on January 11, 1957, in New York. She was buried in the cemetery in Montegrande village, in the Elqui Valley, where she lived as a child. Her own words, "What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people," are inscribed on her tombstone.
What is the message in Sonetos de la Muerte?
The work was awarded first prize in the Juegos Florales, a national literary contest. The Sonnets of Death were inspired by the suicide of Mistral's former lover, Romelio Ureta, in which she claims for his love, argues jealousy and discusses their reunion after their deaths.
Where is Gabriela Mistral buried?
Tumba de Gabriela MistralGabriela Mistral / Place of burial
What is the theme of fear by Mistral?
What is the theme of the poem “Fear” by Gabriela Mistral? The main themes of this poem are a mother's fears about her child and the differences between rural and urban life. It also showcases the themes of the mother-daughter relationship, love, care, insecurity, and fear.
What is the theme of Mistral's poetry?
Gabriela Mistral's poems are characterized by strong emotion and direct language. They are also influenced by the modernist movement. Their central themes are love, deceit, sorrow, nature, travel, and love for children.
What does Mistral's epitaph say?
Her gravestone in Coquimbo reads: 'what the soul does for its body is what the artist does for his country,' an expression of her everlasting commitment to the people of her country.
What is Octavio Paz most famous poem?
One of Paz's best-known works was El laberinto de la soledad, which appeared first in 1950 and in English translation as The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico eleven years later.
Early life
Mistral was born in Vicuña, Chile, but was raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande, where she attended a primary school taught by her older sister, Emelina Molina. She respected her sister greatly, despite the many financial problems that Emelina brought her in later years.
Career as an educator
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Characteristics of her work
Mistral's work is characterized by including gray tones in her literature; sadness and bitterness are recurrent feelings on it. These are evoked in her writings as the reflection of a hard childhood, plagued by deprivation coupled with a lack of affection in her home.
Death, posthumous tributes and legacy
During the 1970s and 1980s, the image of Gabriela Mistral was appropriated by the military dictatorship of Pinochet presenting her as a symbol of "submission to the authority" and "social order".
Themes
Gabriela Mistral has been an influential part for Latin American Poetry. A powerful speech given by a member of the Swedish Academy, a Swedish writer Hjalmar Gullberg set the stage to understand the perspective and the emotions of who is Gabriela Mistral.
Works translated into other languages
Several selections of Mistral's poetry have been published in English translation, including those by Doris Dana, Langston Hughes, and Ursula K. Le Guin.
Who is Gabriela Mistral?
Gabriela Mistral(1889-1957), pseudonym for Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, was born in Vicuña, Chile. The daughter of a dilettante poet, she began to write poetry as a village schoolteacher after a passionate romance with a railway employee who committed suicide. She taught elementary and secondary school for many years until her poetry made her famous. She played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. She held honorary degrees from the Universities of Florence and Guatemala and was an honorary member of various cultural societies in Chile as well as in the United States, Spain, and Cuba. She taught Spanish literature in the United States at Columbia University, Middlebury College, Vassar College, and at the University of Puerto Rico.
What is Ternura's theme?
In 1924 appeared Ternura [Tenderness], a volume of poetry dominated by the theme of childhood; the same theme, linked with that of maternity, plays a significant role in Tala, poems published in 1938. Her complete poetry was published in 1958.
Who is Gabriela Mistral?
Gabriela Mistral. Gabriela Mistral, literary pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, was the first Spanish American author to receive the Nobel Prize in literature; as such, she will always be seen as a representative figure in the cultural history of the continent. One of the best-known Latin American poets of her time, ...
Why was Mistral so famous?
Another reason Mistral became known as a poet even before publishing her first book was the first prize--a flower and a gold coin--she won for "Los sonetos de la muerte" (The Sonnets of Death) in the 1914 "Juegos Florales," or poetic contest, organized by the city of Santiago.
Why did Mistral take the consular post in Rio de Janeiro?
Because of the war in Europe, and fearing for her nephew, whose friendship with right-wing students in Lisbon led her to believe that he might become involved in the fascist movement , Mistral took the general consular post in Rio de Janeiro.
Where was Mistral transferred to?
Quietly embraced in a heap of sorrow). After two years in Punta Arenas, Mistral was transferred again to serve as principal of the Liceo de Niñas in Temuco, the main city in the heart of the Chilean Indian territory. She was there for a year.
What was Mistral's first book?
It is also the year of publication of her first book, Desolación. Coincidentally, the same year, Universidad de Chile (The Chilean National University) granted Mistral the professional title of teacher of Spanish in recognition of her professional and literary contributions.
Where did Mistral grow up?
And this little place can be loved as perfection), Mistral writes in Recados: Contando a Chile (Messages: Telling Chile, 1957). She grew up in Monte Grande, a humble village in the same valley, surrounded by modest fruit orchards and rugged deserted hills.
What is Mistral's passion?
Mistral's works, both in verse and prose, deal with the basic passion of love as seen in the various relationships of mother and offspring, man and woman, individual and humankind, soul and God.
Overview
Lucila Godoy Alcayaga , known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (Spanish: [ɡaˈβɾjela misˈtɾal]), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world". Some …
Early life
Mistral was born in Vicuña, Chile, but was raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande, where she attended a primary school taught by her older sister, Emelina Molina. She respected her sister greatly, despite the many financial problems that Emelina brought her in later years. Her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, was also a schoolteacher. He abandoned the family before she was three years old, and died, alone since estranged from the family, in 1911. Throughout her ea…
Career as an educator
Mistral's meteoric rise in Chile's national school system plays out against the complex politics of Chile in the first two decades of the 20th century. In her adolescence, the need for teachers was so great, and the number of trained teachers was so small, especially in the rural areas, that anyone who was willing could find work as a teacher. Access to good schools was difficult, however, a…
International work and recognition
Mistral's international stature made it highly unlikely that she would remain in Chile. In mid-1925 she was invited to represent Latin America in the newly formed Institute for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. With her relocation to France in early 1926 she was effectively an exile for the rest of her life. She made a living, at first, from journalism and then giving lectures in the U…
Characteristics of her work
Mistral's work is characterized by including gray tones in her literature; sadness and bitterness are recurrent feelings on it. These are evoked in her writings as the reflection of a hard childhood, plagued by deprivation coupled with a lack of affection in her home. However, since her youth as a teacher in a rural school, Gabriela Mistral had a great affection for children that shows throughout her writing. Religion was also reflected in her literature as Catholicism had great influence in her …
Death, posthumous tributes and legacy
During the 1970s and 1980s, the image of Gabriela Mistral was appropriated by the military dictatorship of Pinochet presenting her as a symbol of "submission to the authority" and "social order". Views of her as a saint-like celibate and suffering heterosexual woman were first challenged by author Licia Fiol-Matta who contends that she was rather a lesbian. The suspicions about her eventual lesbianism were reaffirmed with the discovery of her archive in 2007, after th…
Themes
Gabriela Mistral has been an influential part for Latin American Poetry. A powerful speech given by a member of the Swedish Academy, a Swedish writer Hjalmar Gullberg set the stage to understand the perspective and the emotions of who is Gabriela Mistral. Discussing how the first foreign verses of French poet Frédéric Mistral were not able to be understood by his own mother, Gulberg explained how the old language of troubadours became the language of poetry. Ten yea…
Awards and honors
• 1914: Juegos Florales, Sonetos de la Muerte
• 1945: Nobel Prize in Literature
• 1951: Chilean National Prize for Literature
The Venezuelan writer and diplomat who worked under the name Lucila Palacios took her nom d…