Gabriela Mistral (1940)

Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957), Chilean poet, who in 1945 became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Of Spanish, Basque, and Indian descent, Mistral grew up in a village of northern Chile and became a schoolteacher at age 15, advancing later to the rank of college professor. Throughout her life she combined writing with a career as an educator, cultural minister, and diplomat; her diplomatic assignments included posts in Madrid, Lisbon, Genoa, and Nice.