Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, “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”. Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother’s love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.
(Wikipedia)
Mistral, the Icon, and her Others
Mistral takes advantage of her status as representative, and the representational capacities of language, to make visible the traces of what otherwise escapes the official order of things.
See also the conversation video with Licia Fiol-Matta.
- Mistral, Gabriela. Madwomen: The Locas mujeres Poems of Gabriela Mistral. Ed. and trans. Randall Couch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
On Gabriela Mistral
A conversation about Madwomen, with Licia Fiol-Matta (New York University)
Mistral videos
Gabriela Mistral Her Life, Her Legacy:
Rediscovering Gabriela. Redescubriendo a Gabriela (Spanish/English subtitled):
Gabriela Mistral recibe el Nobel 1945 de manos del rey:
- “Award Ceremony Speech 1945”. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022.
- English, James. The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
- Fiol-Matta, Licia. A Queer Mother for the Nation: The State and Gabriela Mistral. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
- Gómez, Claudia, and Paula Tesche. “El discurso de lo éxtimo en ‘Locas mujeres’ de Gabriela Mistral.” Mitologías hoy 5 (Summer 2012): 119-126.
- Lankes, Ana. “Move Over, Pablo Neruda: Young Chileans Have a New Favorite Poet”. The New York Times. January 28, 2003.
- Miller, Nicola. “Recasting the Role of the Intellectual: Chilean Poet Gabriela Mistral.” Feminist Review 79 (2005): 134-149.
- Mistral, Gabriela. “Chile.” A Gabriela Mistral Reader. Ed. Marjorie Agosin. Trans. Maria Giachetti. Fredonia, NY: White Pine, 1993. 173-175.
- -----. Poema de Chile. Ed. Diego del Pozo. Santiago de Chile: La Pollera, 2015.
- “The Nobel Prize in Literature 1945”. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. <>
- “The Nobel Prize in Literature 1982”. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022.
The poems we have in English translation as Madwomen come mainly either from the last volume of poetry Mistral published during her lifetime, Lagar (1954), or from a posthumous collection given the title Lagar II (1992). A “lagar” is a winepress (it can also be an olive press): the place where crushed grapes are put under pressure so as to release the juice that will eventually become wine. The timing of the pressing is a significant factor in determining the character of the final result: to make white wine, for which Chile is best known, the grapes are pressed before the fermentation process begins; to make red wine, they are pressed following a primary fermentation of juice and skins together. Winepressing is a purification, leaving a residue (the pomace, including skins, seeds, and stems) that is set aside, perhaps for other uses—for instance, to make grappa—or to be discarded. It also effects a transformation, a change of state in the extraction of liquid from solid, at the price of carefully regulated tension and pressure, neither too much nor too little, a calculated violence integral to the creative process.
Mistral questions
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
Reaction-affection
Which one was your favourite poem and why?
What themes did you find in the poems? How did they make you feel?
If you are a woman, what aspects did you found yourself identified with that most surprised you?
Is there an overarching theme to Gabriela Mistral’s Madwomen poems? If you think that there is, what theme is it?