Octavio Paz was born in Mexico City on March 31, 1914, to a family of Spanish and native Mexican descent. He was educated at the National University of Mexico in law and literature. Under the encouragement of Pablo Neruda, Paz began his literary career in his teens by founding an avant-garde magazine,
Barandal, and publishing his first book of poems,
Luna silvestre [Sylvan Moon] (Fábula, 1933). Paz’s poetic work
Piedra de Sol [Sun Stone] (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1957) borrows its structure from the Aztec calendar. This long poem, and Paz’s sociocultural analysis of Mexico,
El laberinto de la soledad [
The Labyrinth of Solitude] (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1950), established him as a major literary figure in the 1950s. Paz was awarded the Cervantes Award in 1981, the Neustadt Prize in 1982, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. He died in Mexico City on April 19, 1998. (
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