orig. Lucila Godoy Alcayaga
born April 7, 1889, Vicuña, Chile
died Jan. 10, 1957, Hempstead, N.Y., U.S.
Chilean poet.
Mistral combined writing with a career as a cultural minister and diplomat and as a professor in the U.S. Her reputation as a poet was established in 1914 when she won a prize for three "Sonnets of Death." Her passionate lyrics, with love of children and of the downtrodden as principal themes, are collected in such volumes as Desolación (1922), Tala (1938), and Lagar (1954). In 1945 she became the first Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Gabriela Mistral, 1941.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.