Summary:
Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, died of cancer on January 10, 1957, at age 67. Her award was notably based on her "Sonnets of Death," which emerged from a tragic love affair. Beyond poetry, she had a distinguished career as an educator, diplomat, and statesman, serving Chile in various international roles.
Main Topics Covered:
1. The death and biographical details of Gabriela Mistral.
2. Her literary achievement, including winning the Nobel Prize.
3. Her multifaceted career as a professor, editor, and diplomat.
4. The international and national tributes following her death.
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Women’s History Month
From 1957: Gabriela Mistral, Poet, Is Dead; Won Nobel Prize for Literature
She was recognized in 1945 for three “Soñetos de la Muerte” (“Sonnets of Death”), which were first published in Chile in 1922.
This obituary was originally published on Jan. 11, 1957. It is being republished for a package for Women’s History Month.
HEMPSTEAD, L. I., Jan. 10 — Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, died today of cancer at the Hempstead General Hospital. Her age was 67. She had lived since 1953 in Roslyn Harbor.
Wrote ‘Sonnets of Death’
Señorita Mistral was noted throughout the world as a college professor, newspaper editor and statesman.
She won the Nobel Prize for three “Soñetos de la Muerte” (“Sonnets of Death”), which were first published in Chile in 1922 and later appeared in translation in other countries. Although she rarely discussed personal matters, her biographers said these verses sprang from a tragic love affair.
Señorita Mistral, whose real name was Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, was born on April 7, 1889, in Vicuña, a small town in the valley of Elqui, in northern Chile. Her father was a village school teacher, well known as a “pallador,” or minstrel, who composed verses for festivals.
She formed her pen name from the names of two eminent poets, Gabriele d’Annunzio, the Italian, and Frédéric Mistral, the Frenchman (also a Nobel Prize winner).
Her poetry won immediate popularity and public adulation was bestowed on her throughout Latin America. In the early Nineteen Twenties she was asked by the Mexican Government to assist in the organization and development of Mexico’s libraries and rural schools.
Her years in Mexico were followed by European travel. On her return to Chile she was showered with official honors and later served her country in consular and other posts. She was named Chile’s delegate to the League of Nations Institute of Intellectual Cooperation.
In 1931 she came to the United States to teach Spanish history and civilization at Middlebury and Barnard Colleges.
For twenty years Señorita Mistral had been her country’s only “life consul,” commissioned by a specially enacted law of the Chilean Congress. Her consulate was “wherever she finds a suitable climate for her health and a pleasant atmosphere to pursue her studies.”
In 1946 Señorita Mistral resigned from the United Nations Subcommittee on the Status of Women, denouncing the organization as too militant.
From 1946 to 1948 she lived in Santa Barbara, Calif. Then, at the invitation of President Miguel Aleman of Mexico, she moved to that country for two years. In 1951 and 1952 she served as Chilean consul in Naples.
Besides “Soñetos de la Muerte,” the poet’s better-known works included “Desolación” (“Desolation”), published in New York in 1922; “Tenura” (“Tenderness”), a volume of verse for children published in Madrid two years later; and “Tala” (“Havoc”), poems attacking political authoritarianism. The last was published in Buenos Aires in 1938.
Señorita Mistral was a tall woman with the strong features, straight hair, dark complexion and ready smile that characterize the Basque type of Chilean. Though she never married she showed her fondness for children in a prose poem entitled “To the Children”:
Many years hence,
when I am a little heap of silent dust,
play with me,
with the earth of my heart and of my bones.
Chile in Mourning
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — President Carlos Ibañez decreed today three days of national mourning for Señorita Mistral.
Tribute Paid at U. N.
Special to The New York Times
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. — Spokesmen for more than twenty delegations, including the United States, voiced tribute today in the General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee to the memory of Señorita Mistral.
On behalf of the committee, Hermod Lannung of Denmark, its chairman, expressed sympathy and condolence to the Chilean nation.
Benjamin Cohen, Under Secretary for Trusteeship and himself a Chilean, issued a statement on behalf of all Chilean members of the Secretariat, deploring the death of the poet. Roberto Aldunate, chairman of the Chilean delegation, eulogized Señorita Mistral at the opening of the Assembly’s afternoon meeting.
To preserve archival articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
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