Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz Dies at 84

MEXICO CITY —  Octavio Paz, one of Mexico’s greatest poets and writers and a Nobel prize winner, died Sunday, the official news agency Notimex said early today. He was 84.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo announced Paz’s death early today as Zedillo was returning from the Summit of the Americas in Chile, Mexican news media reported. The president did not give a cause of death or say when the author died.

A prolific writer whose literary career began at 17, Paz’s distinctive surrealistic verse had broad appeal and was well-received by critics internationally. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1990.

Like most Mexican writers, Paz was preoccupied with his country’s many paradoxes and contradictions, the contrasts between its ancient Indian past and a more recent Spanish heritage. That combination has given rise to a culture often baffling even to Mexicans.

Even Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes--a rival who was one of Paz’s sharpest critics--conceded that Paz has “forever changed the face of Mexican literature.”

Paz still is best known for two of his earlier works: the book-length essay “The Labyrinth of Solitude” and the poem “Sun Stone.”

Born in Mexico City on March 31, 1914, Paz attended the National University of Mexico before going abroad to pursue a career as a diplomat. He wrote poetry and essays in his spare time.

In 1968, however, Paz resigned as ambassador following the Oct. 2 “Tlatelolco massacre,” when the Mexican army fired at youths protesting against a wide range of issues including government repression of student activists.

Paz’s views angered both the Mexican left and right. His independence generated controversy throughout much of his career, especially by critics who perceived him as having broken with leftist ideas by criticizing Latin America’s left-leaning governments.

Paz began writing for literary magazines when he was a teenager. The son of a lawyer who was a Zapatista--one of Mexico’s most radical, peasant-based political factions--he was an active supporter of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, helping many migrate to Mexico when Franco’s Fascists triumphed.

After his return to Mexico in 1938, Paz was one of the founders of the journal Taller (Workshop).

“As one of its contributors, he exerted strong influence on contemporary literature,” the Swedish Academy said after awarding him the Nobel Prize. “This he has retained with great open-mindedness, through other journals he has founded and edited.”

Paz’s 1950 book “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” a classic analysis of the Mexican psyche, is considered his masterpiece. Paz describes a visit to Los Angeles:

“When I arrived in the United States, I lived for a while in Los Angeles, a city inhabited by over a million persons of Mexican origin. At first sight, the visitor is surprised not only by the purity of the sky and the ugliness of the dispersed and ostentatious buildings, but also by the city’s vaguely Mexican atmosphere, which cannot be captured in words or concepts. This Mexicanism--delight in decoration, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve--floats in the air. I say ‘floats’ because it never mixes or unites with the other world, the North American world based on precision and efficiency. It floats, without offering any opposition; it hovers, blown here and there by the wind, sometimes breaking up like a cloud, sometimes standing erect like a rising skyrocket. It creeps, it wrinkles, expands and contracts; it sleeps or dreams; it is ragged or beautiful. It floats, never quite existing, never quite vanishing.”