THEHis motto was “always teaching: in the courtyard and in the street as well as in class. Teach with behavior, with gesture and the word ». “Maestra Rural” in Southern Chile schools, Gabriela Mistral He came not only to participate in the works on Declaration of the Rights of UN children. But he was also the first Latin American author, and still today The only author of South America, to win the Nobel Prize. To its figure, Chile dedicates participation in the Children’s Book Fair of Bologna 2025, scheduled from 31 March to 3 April 2025. He does it with the designs of the winners of the exhibition of illustrators Amanda Baeza, María J. Guarda, Karina Letier and Pato Mena. But he also does it with the urban exhibition of Street Poster by Cheap by Cheap: 11 great billboards made by 11 illustrators – by Maria José Rosello to Claudia Blin, from Mariel Sanhueza to Paloma Baldivia – to compose an installation in via dell’Obbadia (open from March 31 to April 4).
Tribute of Chile to Gabriela Mistral at the Bologna Bologna Book Fair
“His lyric made his name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American worldThus the Swedish academy wrote among the reasons for the prize in Gabriela Mistral in 1945. The Chilean poet he actually dedicated all his life to the spread of education and cultureto the struggle for social justice and human rights, women, workers and minorities. Considering teaching as an act of sublime beauty like poetry, in a constant dialogue between knowledge and life experiences.
An important legacy, his, and to be recovered in this era marked by wars and in which the rights of the childhood, despite the scientific and social progress, remain at risk. Hence the tribute of Chilean artists to “their” Gabriela Mistral.
Who was Gabriela Mistral Nobel Prize for literature 80 years ago
Gabriela Mistral is the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, Born in Vicuña, village in the heart of the Andes, in 1889. On the choice of the name with which it became famous, there are different versions: it could be linked to Gabriele D’Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral, or to the Archangel Gabriele and al wind of mistral.
Work as an educator Both in Chile and in Mexico where he founded the school that bears his name. He contributed to organizing public libraries, prepared educational texts and began to compose poems for children (such as Rondas Para Niños, from 1923).
Since 1933, and for a period of twenty years, He worked as a console of Chile in the city such as Madrid, Lisbon and Los Angeles, and lived A few years in Naples and Rapallo. His poem influenced many Latin American writers who followed her, from Pablo Neruda to Octavio Paz. In 1945 Mistral was the first of the Latin American writers, men and women, to win The Nobel Prize For literature: a fundamental moment for all South American poetry.
In 1946, when he was 57 years old, The American translator Doris Dana, of 26, homosexual met in New York. They began a relationship. Even feminist icon, due to his commitment against the Patriarchate he lived a relationship of love and hate with his Chile. At home it was often represented as (“only”) an abnegated teacher and a bucolic and virgin poet.
Instead He sang freedom and lesbian love (in the correspondence Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Diana Published after the death of both, in 2018). And he also committed himself from a political and social point of view. Following the election campaign of Chile in 1952, in a letter to Doris Dana, he admitted: “There is a communist candidate who, unfortunately, is the best person among the three”. Era Salvador Allende.
When he died, for pancreas cancer, on January 10, 1957, his partner Doris Dana was designated his universal heir While the rights derived from his works in South America were intended for children poor in Monte Grande, his neighborhood of origin of Vicuña.
Famous quotes and the teacher’s prayer
The Chilean poet is remembered for some of his famous quotes about children, to which he had dedicated his life. As “the future of children is always today, tomorrow will be late”. Also his famous Prayer of the teacher: «Let me be more mother than a mother / in my love and in the defense of the child / who is not the blood of my blood. / Help me so that each of the “my” children / become the best poetry. / And on the day they will no longer sing my lips, / leave the most melodious of melodies inside him or her ».
He published several collections of poems: Sonetos de la Muerte (1914, sonnets of death) after the suicide of the boyfriend. Desolación (1922, desolation) published in New York, which made it famous. And then Termination (1924, tenderness), Songs for children and Tala (1938, destruction). Among the prose works: Lecturas para mujeres (1923) dedicated to maternity and childhood care, Recados, Counting in Chile (1957). His poems have been published in Italy by Marcos y Marcos, in Song you loved. And from Bompiani paragraph in Fire syllables.
Chile and the rights of the childhood in Bologna
Among the initiatives scheduled at the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, particularly interesting public reading, organized in collaboration with the United Nations, from the Convention on the rights of the childhood, in the children’s version proposed by UNICEF. Among the 42 guest artists who will each read an article of the Convention in their mother tongue, also the Chilean illustrator María Jesús watch Wiegandwinner of the prestigious Macmillan Prize for Illustration.
Reading tips: books for children from Chile
Finally, some reading suggestion Also available in Italian.
Migrants by Marcelo Simonetti and María Girón (Ibby Italia selection for “POR LA PAT Library” and Librería Stoppani “The best 12 books of 2024”). With two other books, he will be at the center of a setting during the fair (the Migrarte shows). The protagonists are two brothers who was announced that, from the following morning, two migrants would arrive in the classroom. A new word, for them, that triggers the imagination and leads to put many possible definitions next to the term “migrants”. Will they be animals? Or special desserts? Linguistic games? Palindromi? Evil spirits?
Those above and those from belowby Paloma Valdivia (Kalakandra). A story about the distance and closeness, on the differences and analogies, on the analyzes of people between the continents (for 4 years),
Matteo’s birthdayby Pato Mena (Nubeocho). Through the imagination, Sofia and the father make the journey unforgettable to get to the birthday of a friend.
The forestby Sebastián Ilabaca (Fatatrac). On the one hand, the secret life of the woods, populated by fantastic enerins and magical plants. On the other, the farm, its inhabitants, their homes, the barn, the stable … with many surprises hidden behind openable windows (from 0 to 2 years).
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