Why Octavio Paz Is Still so Important to Mexico, 100 Years After His Birth The Dallas Morning News
go to original March 31, 2014

Octavio Paz, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature, with his wife, Marie Jose, in New York. (The New York Times)

Mexico is living a time of joy. The country is celebrating the centennial of Octavio Paz’s birthday today. To commemorate the event, the government, politicians and intellectuals are organizing special events, including book presentations of his work, a postal stamp and lottery ticket with his likeness, a grand intellectual summit (“Octavio Paz and the World of the XXI Century”), public readings of his poems in the main plaza outside the Senate building, and free distribution of an anthology of his work to middle school students.

Why is Mexico devoting so much effort and economic resources to celebrate the birth of a poet? Why is Paz able to create such an excitement and consensus behind his name?

In a monotheistic Mexico, Paz is a cultural god. In the church of Mexican intellectual life, Paz stands at the top of the hierarchy. Of course, there are saints like Enrique Krauze, Carlos Fuentes, Carlos Monsivás and others, but Paz does not have equals. In Mexico, people worship his name and work without even having read his poems, essays and books. When Paz died in 1998, thousands gathered outside the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City to pay tribute to their national deity.

Several reasons explain why Paz still commands the respect and admiration of the country. First, he was able to convey in his writing important aspects of the life and culture of Mexico. Second, he was a truly Mexican transnational intellectual, a thinker who transcended localism, navigating the world to understand the character of the Mexican. Third, he was a pluralist in what was, in his lifetime, an authoritarian country. Fourth, he produced exquisite culture in a poorly educated country. And, finally, he was a courageous man who condemned abuses of authority when denunciation was often repressed by the government. For this and much more, Paz is not only respected but venerated.

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