
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz was born in Mexico City in 1914 and died there in 1998. He was without question one of the most influential, erudite, and renowned poets of the twentieth century—poetry for him being “the secret religion of the modern age.” In 1990, the Swedish Academy awarded Paz the Nobel Prize in Literature “for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.” The author, translator, and editor of an astonishing range of books, Paz is “a writer for the entire world to celebrate” (Chicago Tribune), “the poet-archer who goes straight to the heart and mind, where the center of being is one” (Nadine Gordimer), “a model of lucidity and responsibility” (Czeslaw Milosz). New Directions publishes twelve collections of his poetry.