Vicuña (Chile), 1889 – Nueva York (Estados Unidos), 1957
By Flávio Aguiar
The verses of the Chilean writer, whose birth name was Lucila Godoy Alcayaga—the first woman and also the first representative of Latin America to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945) on the world literary stage—originate from Modernism.
The absence of rhetoric and a preference for informal language combine with a strong use of symbolism in poems that frequently address themes related to motherhood, love, death as destiny, religious diversity, and mestizo and popular cultures. Her first published poems, at the age of sixteen, appeared in the newspapers La Voz de Elqui and Diario de Coquimbo in 1905. From this period also comes her first book, Desolación, whose title already reveals another key element of her poetics: the theme of pain, drawn from personal experiences. Orphaned at the age of three, her life and work were deeply marked by the death of her first love, Romelio Ureta, in 1907.
Her familiarity with rural life, where she was born, combined with her experience as a primary school teacher, helped shape her politically engaged path, leading her to actively participate in Chile’s educational reform. Her commitment to social causes also defined her intellectual career and led her to serve as Chile’s consul in Naples, Lisbon, and New York.
She traveled extensively to give lectures, courses, and conferences—activities that did not prevent her from engaging in national political actions, such as the 1938 Popular Front electoral campaign, which brought her childhood friend Pedro Aguirre Cerda to the presidency of Chile. Among the themes of her vast body of work—which includes an extensive collection of letters, political articles, and journalistic writings—one of her recurring concerns was the female experience, explored in Poemas de las madres (1950).
She paid special attention to popular culture, as seen in the poems compiled in Ternura (1924), which were based on Latin American lullabies, Spanish rondas, and the Italian folk song tradition. The appreciation of indigenous and mestizo cultural traditions in Chilean history forms the central theme of Tala (1938), which features assonant rhymes and moves away from traditional modernist structures.
By reviving archaic expressions from rural childhood speech, she shared the Americanist vision and the interest in pre-Columbian civilizations that also inspired major 20th-century literary figures such as Pablo Neruda and Miguel Ángel Asturias.
One of Latin America’s most prestigious figures in the international humanistic scene, the poet spent the last twenty years of her life working on Poema de Chile—a posthumous work that compiles 77 poems, painting a vivid portrait of her homeland through its landscapes, flora, and fauna.
By blending lyricism with social and personal themes and moving between Modernism and the Avant-Garde, she aligns closely with the works of Brazilian poet Cecília Meireles in her profound expression of emotion. Another notable work is Lecturas para mujeres destinadas a la enseñanza del lenguaje (1924).
