Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was born in Mexico City, and his extraordinarily busy and fruitful life took him from civil-war Spain to surrealist Paris, from US universities to the Mexican embassy in New Delhi, where he served for six years as ambassador before resigning in protest after his government's suppression of student demonstrations at the 1968 Olympic Games. A great poet, Paz was also the author of many essays and a study of Mexican identity, The Labyrinth of Solitude, as well as the founder and editor of two important journals, Plural and Vuelta. Octavio Paz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

From the Review

December 6, 1990: The Power of Ancient Mexican Art

February 2, 1989: An Open Letter to Fidel Castro (letter)

February 26, 1987: Food of the Gods

The Blood of Kings: A New Interpretation of Maya Art 17–August 24, 1986), and the Cleveland Museum of Art (October 8–December 14, 1986) An exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (May

The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art Worth) by Linda Schele, by Mary Ellen Miller

December 7, 1978: In a Cuban Prison (letter)

January 24, 1974: Protest to Podgorny (letter)

May 20, 1971: Unfortunate Inaccuracy (letter)

May 6, 1971: An Open Letter to Fidel Castro (letter)

November 7, 1968: The Shame of the Olympics (poem)

From New York Review Books

Miserable Miracle In Miserable Miracle, the great French poet and artist Henri Michaux, a confirmed teetotaler, tells of his life-transforming first encounters with a powerful hallucinogenic drug.