This America of Ours

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga born in Chile in 1889. She is a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. In 1904 Mistral published some early poems, such as Ensoñaciones ("Dreams"), Carta Íntima ("Intimate Letter") and Junto al Mar, in the local newspaper El Coquimbo. An important moment of formal recognition came on December 22, 1914, when Mistral was awarded first prize in a national literary contest Juegos Florales in Santiago(the capital of Chile), with the work Sonetos de la Muerte (Sonnets of Death). In 1922 she published Desolación in New York, which further promoted her international acclaim. A year later she published Lecturas para Mujeres (Readings for Women), a text in prose and verse that celebrates Latin America from the Americanist perspective.

The poet's second major volume of poetry, Tala, appeared in 1938, published in Buenos Aires with the help of longtime friend and correspondent Victoria Ocampo. This volume includes many poems celebrating the customs and folklore of Latin America. During the last years of her life she made her home in the town of Roslyn, New York; in early January 1957 she transferred to Hempstead, New York, where she died from pancreatic cancer on January 10, 1957, aged 67.

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