The Sunstone & Other Poems

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) was born in Mexico City and studied at the university in his hometown. He published his first book of poetry in Spain in 1937. He subsequently published many collections of poetry, including the famous *The Stone of the Sun* (1957). He pursued a career in diplomacy after 1945, and from 1962 to 1968 served as Mexico’s ambassador to India. In 1968, however, he resigned from his post in protest at the bloody suppression of the student demonstrations in Tlatelolco, Mexico, during the Olympic Games, and took refuge in France for a time. During the 1970s, he taught at Cambridge and, for a time, at Harvard. Alongside his poetry, he wrote numerous essays on his favourite subjects, which were the intersection of various trends in modern poetry, Eastern philosophies and the ancient civilisations of the Americas. He is considered one of the most important poets and theorists of Latin American literature. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in 1998 from ‘terminal illness’, aged 84.