Selected Essays
Rarely in the Spanish-speaking world has anyone covered the different sides of world culture with such breadth as Octavio Paz, and reflected with such depth on the problems, contradictions and tragedies of both the past and his own time. Rarely has anyone managed to achieve such a balance between critical rigor and poetic intuition, between thought and passion. It would not be an exaggeration at all to say that the essayistic work of Octavio Paz, inseparable from his poetry, is counted among those literary works that, in the words of the Mexican poet himself, "manage to answer those questions that vaguely, without clearly succeeding to formulate, each person sets himself".
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.
A prolific author and poet, Paz published scores of works during his lifetime, many of which have been translated into other languages. His poetry has been translated into English by Samuel Beckett, Charles Tomlinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser and Mark Strand. His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, and existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism.
As an essayist Paz wrote on topics such as Mexican politics and economics, Aztec art, anthropology, and sexuality. His book-length essay, The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad), delves into the minds of his countrymen, describing them as hidden behind masks of solitude.
