Adiós to Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas

After a life dedicated to poetry, teaching and politics, Gonzalo Rojas, one of Chile's greatest poets of the 20th century, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. He had been ill after suffering a debilitating stroke two months ago.

His family is taking the news calmly because Rojas had "a tremendous life," the poet's son, Gonzalo Rojas-May, said.

After falling ill with pneumonia last September, Rojas made a "surprising recovery," staying active by working on a number of projects, Rojas-May continued.

"It was really a privilege for those of us who were able to learn to see and read the world with him."

Rojas' work explores the themes of love, eroticism and the transitory nature of life.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera remembered Rojas in an official announcement. "I very much regret the death of poet Gonzalo Rojas, who along with other great poets, such as Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro, and Nicanor Parra, have contributed to make Chile known as a land of poets," he said.

Chile's Education Minister, Joaquin Lavin, meanwhile, called Rojas' death "a great loss for Chilean literature."

Born on December 20, 1917 in Lebu, a fishing town in the Bío-Bío Region of Chile, 660 kilometers south of Santiago, Rojas grew up in a poor coal-mining family. He was able to study in Santiago, later earning teaching and law degrees at the University of Chile.

Between 1938 and 1941 he participated in the surrealist group Mandrágora founded by Braulio Arenas, Teófilo Cid and Enrique Gómez Correa. Seven years later, in 1948, his first volume of poems was published.

After working as a high school and university teacher at Valparaíso and at the University of Concepción, in 1958 he organized the Congress of Writers in Concepción, a legendary event that brought together the elite of Latin American literature. During the presidency of Socialist Salvador Allende he served as a diplomat in China and Cuba. In 1973, following the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, he was exiled from Chile and barred from teaching at its universities.

He first moved to East Germany, then to Venezuela, before settling in the United States in 1980, staying there until 1994. He was a visiting professor at Columbia University and the University of Chicago and professor at Brigham Young University.

In 1994 he returned to Chile, living in the city of Chillán, about 400 kilometers south of Santiago, where he remained until his death. "He was overwhelmed by fame and the calls, so he liked to take refuge in Chillán," his son said.

Gonzalo Rojas won Spain's Cervantes Prize, the most important literature award of the Spanish-speaking world, in 2003. Among the other international prizes he received are the Award of the Writers Society of Chile (1946), Mexico's Octavio Paz Prize and Argentina's José Hernández Prize.

A great admirer of Romantic poets such as Novalis and Friedrich Hölderlin, Rojas' work found strong interest in Germany.

Rojas' body of work is vast, and includes his first poetry anthology The Misery of Man in 1948, Against Death (1964), "Dark" (1977), Transtierro (1979), On Lightning (1981) and From the Water (2007).

Gonzalo Rojas' poetry has been translated into English, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Romanian, Swedish, Chinese, Turkish and Greek.

Chilean Culture Minister Luciano Cruz-Coke announced two days of official mourning while the poet's body coffin lay in the National Museum of Fine Arts. He is to be buried in Chillán.