Gabriela Mistral

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Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (American Spanish: [luˈsila ɣoˈðoj alkaˈʝaɣa]; 7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (Spanish: [ɡaˈβɾjela misˈtɾal]), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world". Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.

Early life

Mistral was born in Vicuña, Chile, but was raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande, where she attended a primary school taught by her older sister, Emelina Molina. She respected her sister greatly, despite the many financial problems that Emelina brought her in later years. Her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, was also a schoolteacher. He abandoned the family before she was three years old, and died, alone since estranged from the family, in 1911. Throughout her early years she was never far from poverty. By age fifteen, she was supporting herself and her mother, Petronila Alcayaga, a seamstress, by working as a teacher's aide in the seaside town of Compañia Baja, near La Serena, Chile.

In 1904 Mistral published some early poems, such as Ensoñaciones ("Dreams"), Carta Íntima ("Intimate Letter") and Junto al Mar ("By the Sea"), in the local newspaper El Coquimbo: Diario Radical, and La Voz de Elqui using a range of pseudonyms and variations on her civil name.

In 1906, Mistral met a railway worker, Romelio Ureta, her first love, who killed himself in 1909. Shortly after, her second love married someone else. This heartbreak was reflected in her early poetry and earned Mistral her first recognized literary work in 1914 with Sonnets on Death (Sonetos de la muerte). Mistral was awarded first prize in a national literary contest Juegos Florales in the Chilean capital, Santiago. Writing about his suicide led the poet to consider death and life more broadly than previous generations of Latin American poets. While Mistral had passionate friendships with various men and women, and these impacted her writings, she was secretive about her emotional life.

She had been using the pen name Gabriela Mistral since June 1908 for much of her writing. After winning the Juegos Florales she infrequently used her given name of Lucila Godoy for her publications. She formed her pseudonym from the names of two of her favorite poets, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral or, as another story has it, from a composite of the Archangel Gabriel and the mistral wind of Provence.

In 1922, Mistral released her first book, Desolation (Desolación), with the help of the Director of Hispanic Institute of New York, Federico de Onis. It was a collection of poems that encompassed motherhood, religion, nature, morality and love of children. Her personal sorrow was present in the poems and her International reputation was established. Her work was a turn from modernism in Latin America and was marked by critics as direct, yet simplistic. In 1924, she released her second book, Tenderness (Ternura).

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Career as an educator

Mistral's meteoric rise in Chile's national school system stands out against Chile's turbulent politics in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The need for teachers was so high in her adolescence, and the number of certified teachers was so low, especially in rural areas, that any one who was eager would find teaching was so limited. However, access to good schools was difficult, and the young woman lacked the political and social links required to attend the Normal School: In 1907, she was refused admission without explanation: Father Ignacio Munizaga, the school's chaplain, who was aware of her publications in the local newspapers, her support for liberalizing education, and increasing access to the schools to all socioeconomic classes were all of her applicants.

Despite the fact that her formal education had concluded by 1900, she was able to teach thanks to her older sister, Emelina, who had started as a tutor's aide and was responsible for a significant portion of the poet's early education. Because of her appearances in local and national newspapers and magazines, the poet was able to move from one to another. She was also able to move because she was able to move. She had worked in three schools near La Serena, Barrancas, Traiguán, 1910, and Antofagasta, in the desert north, between 1906 and 1912. She had already worked in a liceo or high school in Los Andes, where she stayed for six years and often visited Santiago. Pedro Aguirre Cerda, then Minister of Education and potentially Chile's future president, was one of the first three principals of the Sara Braun Lyceum in Punta Arenas in 1918. She went to Temuco in 1920 and then to Santiago, where she deposed Josefina Dey del Castillo, a member of the Radical Party, to become the head of Santiago's Liceo #6, the country's newest and most prestigious girls' academy. Gabriela Mistral's appointment to the highly coveted post in Santiago was one of the reasons that prompted her to decline an invitation to work in Mexico in 1922, with that country's Minister of Education, José Vasconcelos. He was involved in the country's attempt to reform libraries and schools in order to establish a national education system. Desolación in New York that year, the author of the international acclaim who had already been promoting her journalism and public speaking. Lecturas Mujeres (Reading for Women), a book in prose and verse that honors Latin America from the Mexican Revolution's broad, Americanist view, was published a year later.

Following nearly two years in Mexico, she moved from Laos, Texas, to Washington, D.C., where she spoke at the Pan American Union, and then toured Europe: Ternura (Tenderness), a series of lullabies and rondas written for an audience of children, parents, and other writers, was published in Madrid. In early 1925, she returned to Chile, where she officially retired from the country's education system, earning a pension. It wasn't a moment too soon: the legislature had just agreed to the demands of the teachers union, which was led by Mistral's lifelong adversary Amanda Labarca Hubertson, that only university-trained teachers should be allowed posts in the schools. In 1923, the University of Chile had granted the title of Spanish Professor, but her formal education ended before she was 12 years old. Her autodidacticism was revelatory, a testament to the growing popularity of newspapers, magazines, and books in provincial Chile, as well as her personal determination and verbal genius.

When she returned to Temuco, Chile's second Nobel Prize winner, Pablo Neruda, met Mistral. She read his poetry and recommended reading for him. They became lifelong friends.

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Awards and honors

• 1914: Juegos Florales, Sonetos de la Muerte
• 1945: Nobel Prize in Literature
• 1951: Chilean National Prize for Literature