Remembering Octavio Paz

A Poet Like the Angels
Nathan Gardels - As editor of NPQ, Nathan Gardels collaborated with Octavio Paz on Several Projects over the past 15 years.

Cuernavaca - It was sometime during my early college years that I first read Octavio Paz. Oddly, perhaps, for the son of a Christian minister, his meditation on Mexico's pre-Catholic tradition of the "day of the dead" in The Labyrinth of Solitude affected me more deeply than an entire childhood of religious training.

The Last Mandarin
Mario Vargas Loosa is the author of numerous books, including Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and the forthcoming The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto. The piece was translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam.

Berlin - The death of Octavio Paz deprives the culture of our times of an exceptional poet and thinker. While deeply rooted in Mexico, his native land, his work transcends national boundaries and extends throughout Western culture, which is enriched with images, ideas, arguments and inventions that left an indelible mark on poetic creation, on art literary criticism, on historico-social analysis and political debate.

Mi Amigo Octavio Paz
Carlos Fuentes, a member of NPQ's advisory board, is the author of numerous books, including The Old Gringo, Christopher Unborn and The Crystal Frontier. This piece was translated from Spanish by Alfred Macadam

London - "I cannot being this lecture without paying homage to the great Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz. His work encompasses and enriches the culture of our century. It will also survive it. A writer as great as Octavio Paz is, along with his readers, both guardian and witness of his own immortality."

back to index