mistral profile

“Nearly a half-century after Gabriela Mistral’s death, her presence can still be felt almost everywhere in Chile. There is probably no town in this country that does not have a street, square or school named for her, the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, and her poems and essays have long been part of the school curriculum.
But “the mother of the nation,” as Mistral is often called here because of her poems for and about children, is now the focus of a controversy that is forcing a re-examination of her life and work. The recent publication of her private journals shows that she had a love-hate relationship with Chile, while a biography and a film project argue that part of her ambivalence stemmed from what is described as her lesbianism.”
More gossip in this Mistral profile from the New York Times.