It was good to see mention of a Latin American Nobel prize winner in your editorial (There will be two Nobel prizes for literature this year. That is one too many, 9 March) but, on the day after International Women’s Day, so much better if it had been Gabriela Mistral rather than Pablo Neruda.
She was the first Latin American to ever be awarded a Nobel prize, and it was “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world”. This was in 1945, 26 years before Neruda’s award in 1971.
Neruda knew Mistral from his boyhood and attributed to her his love of literature, especially the Russian classics, thanks to books she gave him. When not writing award-winning poetry, Mistral was also an educator, diplomat and human rights campaigner at the League of Nations and the UN. She deserves recognition.
Heather Mayall
Hove, East Sussex
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