Octavio Paz was born in 1914 in Mexico City. A poet, writer, thinker, and diplomat, he was the author of many volumes of poetry as well as literary and art criticism and works on politics, culture, and Mexican history. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, he was also awarded the Jerusalem Prize, the Cervantes Prize, the Neutstadt International Prize for Literature, and the German Peace Prize. He died in 1998.