Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was an extraordinary woman. Her life was filled with tragedy but she turned her experiences into beautiful poetry. Her poetry reflected many things about who Gabriela Mistral was and what had happened to her throughout her life.

Gabriela Mistral was born on April 7, 1889 in Vicuсa, Chile. When she was only three years old, her father abandoned her family. She attended a rural primary school and the Vicuсa state secondary school. By the age of sixteen, she started to support herself and her mother by working as a teachers aide. Gabriela Mistral is only a pen name for Lucila Godoy Alcayaga. She took the name from her two favorite poets: Gabriele D'Annunzio and Frйdйric Mistral. She was the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize for literature (1945). After the suicide of her lover, Romelio Ureta, she lived a life of self-described desolation. Although she wanted it, she never experienced motherhood. She did adopt a child but it later died. She taught at Colombia University, and Vassar College. In 1930, she was a visiting professor at Barnard College in New York City. She also became the principal of Santiago High School. Her first text was la Voz de Elqui and Diario Radical de Coquimbo in 1905. Her second work was called Desolaciуn. Soon after she accepted her post at Santiago, she was invited to work in Mexico on a plan to reform the libraries and the schools. She lived primarily in France and Italy during 1925 to 1934. She also worked for the League for Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations between 1922 and 1938. She was the honorary consult for Brazil, Spain, Portugal and the U.S. In 1933 she entered the Chilean Foreign Service and was appointed by the government of Chile as a sort of ambassador-at-large for the Latin American Culture. During World War two, she became friends with Stefan Zweig and his wife. Later they committed suicide in Rio de Janeiro. Also her nephew, Juan Miguel killed himself. Because of poor health, she was forced to retire to her home in New York. She died on January 10, 1957, at the age of sixty-seven. She died of cancer.

Like most people, Gabriela Mistral wrote poems about her life experiences or what she holds to be true.