Poet Gabriela Mistral was born on this day in 1889 in Vicuña, Chile, and died in 1956. She is the only Latina – and one of a dozen Latinos – to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Her first books covered mourning the loss of loved ones – Sonetos de la muerte, released in 1914 and inspired by the death of her lover, and Desolación (Despair), published in 1922. But the former schoolteacher is best known for her poems that touch on the subjects of children and motherhood, such as in the book Ternura (Tenderness).
Her legacy lives on in the Gabriela Mistral Foundation, which funds grants to Chilean children in need. Mistral is even the subject of her own children’s book, My Name Is Gabriela: The Life of Gabriela Mistral, written by Monica Brown.
The Hispanic Reader 