Gabriela Mistral

"“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today.”"

Born with the name of Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1967) was a Chilean poet. She was the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945.

Struggling with poverty, she worried about the education in her country, so she worked hard to be accepted as a teacher. Later she became a principal, not only in her country but also in Mexico.

After retiring from the educative labor, she became a representative of Chile in other countries, in which she worked until her death.

Her poems are almost all about death, grief, sorrow and anguish, but there are some uplifting ones too.