Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (April 7, 1889 – January 10, 1957), was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist best known for being the first Latin American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was awarded “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.”
Born in Vicuña, Chile and raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande, her family was rather poor. Her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, abandoned the family less than three years after she was born. Though he abandoned them and left her mother to support the family, he did pass down his gift for teaching.
