Editing Gabriela Mistral (section)

==Early life==

Mistral was born in [[Vicuña, Chile|Vicuña]], Chile,<ref name=":0">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Gabriela Mistral {{!}} Chilean poet |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gabriela-Mistral |access-date=2017-08-23 |language=en}}</ref> but grew up in Montegrande, an [[Andes|Andean]] village where she attended a primary school taught by her older sister, Emelina Molina. Despite the financial problems caused by Emelina later on, Mistral held great respect for her. Her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, was also a schoolteacher but left the family when she was three years old and died alone and estranged in 1911. Poverty was a constant presence in her early life. At the age of fifteen, she supported herself and her mother, Petronila Alcayaga, a [[Dressmaker|seamstress]], by working as a teacher's aide in Compañía Baja, a seaside town near [[La Serena, Chile|La Serena]], Chile.

In 1904, Mistral published some early poems, including ''Ensoñaciones'' ("Dreams"), ''Carta Íntima'' ("Intimate Letter"), and ''Junto al Mar'' ("By the Sea"), in the local newspapers ''El Coquimbo: Diario Radical'' and ''La Voz de Elqui'', using different pseudonyms and variations of her name.

In 1906, Mistral met Romelio Ureta, a railway worker and her first love, who tragically took his own life in 1909.<ref name="nobel">{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1945 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1945/mistral/biographical/ |access-date=2021-03-23 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref> Shortly after, her second love married someone else. These heartbreaks were reflected in her early poetry and gained recognition with her first published literary work in 1914, ''[[Sonetos de la Muerte|Sonetos de la muerte]]'' ("Sonnets on Death"). To protect her job as a teacher, she used a pen name, fearing the consequences of revealing her true identity.<ref>{{ cite book | translator-last1=Hughes | translator-first=Langston | title=Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral | location=Bloomington | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1957 | page=9 | url=https://archive.org/details/selectedpoemsofg0000lang/page/8/mode/2up | quote=She did not sign her poetry with her own name, Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, because as a young teacher she feared, if it became known that she wrote such emotionally outspoken verses, she might lose her job. Instead she created for herself another name—taking from the archangel Gabriel her first name, and from a sea wind the second. When the poems that were quickly to make her famous, ''Sonetos de la Muerte'', were published in 1914, they were signed Gabriela Mistral. }}</ref> Mistral won first prize in the national literary contest [[Floral Games|Juegos Florales]] held in [[Santiago]], the capital of Chile. Exploring themes of death and life more broadly than previous [[Latin American poetry|Latin American poets]], she expanded her poetic horizons. While Mistral had passionate friendships with both men and women, which influenced her writing, she kept her emotional life private.

Since June 1908, Mistral had been using the pen name Gabriela Mistral for most of her writing. After winning the Juegos Florales, she rarely used her given name, Lucila Godoy, for her publications. She constructed her pseudonym from the names of two of her favorite poets, [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]] and [[Frédéric Mistral]], the French winner of the [[1904 Nobel Prize in Literature]], or, according to another account, as a combination of the [[Gabriel|Archangel Gabriel]] and the [[Mistral (wind)|mistral wind]] of [[Provence]].

In 1922, Mistral published her debut book, ''Desolación'' ("Desolation"),<ref name="nobel" /> with assistance from Federico de Onis, the Director of the Hispanic Institute of New York. The collection of poems explored themes such as motherhood, religion, nature, morality, and love for children. Her personal sorrows were reflected in the poems, solidifying her international reputation. Departing from the modernist trends in Latin America, Mistral's work was hailed by critics as straightforward yet simplistic. Two years later, in 1924, she released her second book, ''Ternura'' ("Tenderness").<ref name="nobel" />