Homero Aridjis is a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 poet, novelist, environmental activist, journalist and diplomat known for his independence.

Family and Early Life

Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacán

Michoacán

Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, on April 6, 1940, to a Greek father and a Mexican mother; he was the youngest of five brothers. His father fought in the Greek army during World War I and the Greco-Turkish War, when his family was forced to flee from their home in Tire, southeast of Smyrna, in Asia Minor. His mother grew up in Contepec amidst the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution. After nearly losing his life at age ten in a shotgun accident Aridjis became an avid reader and began to write poetry. In 1959 he was awarded a scholarship at the Rockefeller Foundation-supported Mexico City Writing Center (Centro Mexicano de Escritores), the youngest writer to have received the award in the Center’s 55-year history.

Aridjis has published 41 books of poetry and prose, many of them translated into a dozen languages. His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964, the youngest writer to receive the prize; the Diana-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla. 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He received the Prix Roger Caillois in France for his poetry and prose and Serbia’s highest literary honor, the Smederevo Golden Key Prize, for his poetry. In 2005 the state of Michoacan awarded him the first Erendira State Prize for the Arts.

Twice the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, Aridjis was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the Indiana University.

He has been a visiting professor at Indiana University, New York University and Columbia, and held the Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. He has been an editorial page columnist at the Mexican newspapers La Jornada

La Jornada

La Jornada is one of Mexico City's leading daily newspapers. It was established in 1984 by Carlos Payán Velver. The current editor is Carmen Lira Saade...

, Reforma

Reforma

Reforma is a Mexican newspaper based in Mexico City. It has 276,700 readers in Mexico City. The paper shares content with other papers in parent newsgroup Grupo Reforma. The cumulative readership of the newsgroup is above 400,000...

 and El Universal since 1985, publishing hundreds of articles about environmental, political and literary topics.

Homero Aridjis has served as Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland and to the UNESCO in Paris. For six years he was President of International PEN

International PEN

PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....

, the worldwide association of writers.

Personal life

In 1965, Aridjis married Betty Ferber. They have two daughters, Eva Aridjis

Eva Aridjis

Eva S. Aridjis, born 1974 in Holland, Netherlands while her father was serving there as Mexico's ambassador, is a Mexican filmmaker. She later attended the American School Foundation in Mexico City, Princeton University, and New York University...

, a filmmaker in New York (Niños de la calle, La Santa Muerte, The Favor) and writer Chloe Aridjis

Chloe Aridjis

Chloe Aridjis is a London-based Mexican writer. She is the oldest daughter of writer and diplomat Homero Aridjis and Betty Ferber de Aridjis, an environmental activist & translator...

, in London (Books of Clouds, Topografía de lo insólito).

Critical Appreciation

• Octavio Paz
  Octavio Paz
  Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
  
  : “In the poetry of Homero Aridjis there is the gaze, the pulse of the poet, the discontinuous time of practical and rational life and the continuity of desire and death: there is the poet’s primal truth.”
• Kenneth Rexroth: “He is a visionary poet of lyrical bliss, crystalline concentrations and infinite spaces… I can think of no poet of Aridjis’ generation in the Western Hemisphere who is as much at ease in the blue spaces of illumination – the illumination of transcending love. These are words for a new Magic Flute.” (Introduction to "Blue Spaces")
• Juan Rulfo
  Juan Rulfo
  Juan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...
  
  : “The poetry of Homero Aridjis is a symbol of love. His work is very beautiful, above all, his style is very original, very novel.”
• Guillermo Sucre: “All his poetry – ever since "Antes del reino" (1963)-- is a continual conquest of splendor.”
• Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
  
  : “Homero Aridjis’ poems open a door into light.”

• "Mirándola dormir":
• Joaquín Marco: “Mirándola dormir" is one of the most beautiful, profound and invigorating love poems in our language.”
• José Miguel Oviedo: “Mirándola dormir" is a work of exceptional intensity and beauty. An admirable poetic prose has been the ideal channel for this erotic crossing. Handled with perfect control of its rhythms, its internal breathing and the precise integrity of its sounds, it has shown the voice of the Mexican poet in all its deep singularity.”

• "Persephone": André Pieyre de Mandiargues
  André Pieyre de Mandiargues
  André Pieyre de Mandiargues was a French writer born in Paris. He became an associate of the Surrealists and married the Italian painter Bona Tibertelli de Pisis...
  
  : “This vast poem in prose which is narrative but never stops being poetic, which is realistic but always fantastical, is a unique book in contemporary literature. The power of this poem, or of this scandalous and fascinating illumination, is incomparable.”
• Harvard Bookshelf: “A dazzling work of literature in any tradition, or language, by any standards.”
• Le Nouvel Observateur: “Aridjis reinvents the multiplicity of language with rare mastery. This poetical form gives the story a new and splendid dimension.”

• "1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezón of Castile":
• The New York Times Book Review: “Succeeds in magisterially recreating that woeful and bizarre period of Spanish history that prefigured the discovery and conquest of America. The overall effect is one of splendidly rendered originality and authenticity… Swarms of minor characters cannot fail to remind us of classics like Cervantes’ Don Quixote or of certain canvases by Velázquez or El Greco
  El Greco
  El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
  
  .”
• The Times Literary Supplement: “An extraordinary account of religious persecution in the fifteenth century. The sense of menace and threat that Aridjis conjures up is extraordinary.”
• La Quinzaine Litteraire: “This superb book reads like the wind, like an epic chronicle. Homero Aridjis retrieves, through the miracle of his magical prose, the very essence of the twilight of Spain.”
• Le Soir (Brussels): “With 1492, Homero Aridjis has achieved a novel of exceptional grandeur.”
• The Guardian (England): “A book of remarkable imaginative power, a looming shadow of a book, a pit and a pendulum all in one, measuring and burying, remorselessly bizarre. It is impossible not to respect the eloquence which Aridjis brings to lives facing the threat of sudden death at every point and the subtlety with which he insists that the death of the spirit is more terrible than anything that may befall the body.”
• Espaces Latino-Américains (Michel Schneider): "1492 - Les Aventures de Juan Cabezón de Castille and 1492" – "Mémoires du Nouveau Monde": “Le diptyque sur et autour de 1492 constitue une fresque romanesque monumentale et exceptionnelle, qui place Homero Aridjis au premier plan de la littérature hispanique et latino-américaine d’aujourd’hui ».

• "The Lord of the Last Days: Visions of the Year 1000":
• The Washington Post (James Reston): “The test is ‘whether the past is convincingly imagined and vividly evoked’. That is what Homero Aridjis accomplishes so brilliantly in this phantasmagoric, luminous novel, The Lord of the Last Days: Visions of the Year 1000.”
• Giuseppe Bellini: “Through the two currents of his fiction, with historical background and futuristic themes, Aridjis has brought and is bringing a contribution to Hispano-American narrative which places him among the greatest authors of the 20th Century.”
• "Moctezuma":
• Luis Buñuel
  Luis Buñuel
  Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
  
  : “It’s perfect. It’s a very profound and strange play. I think the author is completely surrealist, which for me is great praise.”
• "El último Adán (The Last Adam)":
• Luis Buñuel
  Luis Buñuel
  Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
  
  : “That the apocalypse will be the work of man and not of God is, for me, an absolute certainty. Therein lies the difference between the apocalyptic delirium of The Last Adam and Saint John’s mediocre apocalyptic descriptions. Obviously, man’s imagination has been enriched over the centuries.”

• "Los invisibles":
• Alberto Manguel: “Contemporary literature in Spanish generally lacks the voluptuousness and richness evident in Los Invisibles. It too often chooses between exacerbated realism and a kind of free-for-all fantasy. Aridjis, on the contrary, can use all kinds of voice, showing absolute mastery in all, and an astonishing narrative virtuosity. If "Los Invisibles" had to claim a lineage, it would be that of Voltaire's Contes philosophiques, Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum and (because of its literary humour) Marcel Aymé's "La tête des autres.”
• J. M. G. Le Clézio: “After reading the novel, I believe it will be impossible to walk the streets of Paris without feeling surrounded by invisibles forces.”

• "Solar Poems":
• Yves Bonnefoy
  Yves Bonnefoy
  Yves Bonnefoy is a French poet and essayist. Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher....
  
  : “A great flame passes through the words, the poetry of Homero Aridjis, who sets reality alight in images that at once illuminate and consume it, making life a sister of dream. Homero is a great poet; our century has great need of him.” (Preface to "Les poemes solaires")
• Quincy Troupe: “Solar Poems" constantly serves up an exhilarating feast of wonderfully evocative images and metaphors that are also daring, cutting edge, full of surprises, often irreverent, historical, but sensual --- even erotic… Aridjis’ poetry is full of love and a profound wonder for all of the universe and its inhabitants --- humans, animals, the earth, the seas, the sky and the sun and the moon. Solar Poems is a beautiful and necessary collection of poems by a wise poet at the peak of his powers.”

Environmental Activism

Aridjis is increasingly renowned as one of Latin America's leading environmental activists. As a child, he would often walk up a hillside behind his village to watch the migrating monarch butterflies. As he grew older logging thinned the forest and his concern for the fate of the butterflies and the trees triggered his earliest public defense of the environment.

In March 1985 Aridjis founded and became president of the Group of 100, an association of prominent artists and intellectuals, including Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...

, Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...

, Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences....

, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

, Alvaro Mutis

Álvaro Mutis

Álvaro Mutis Jaramillo is a Colombian poet, novelist, and essayist and author of the compendium The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll.-Early life:...

, Augusto Monterroso, Francisco Toledo

Francisco Toledo

Francisco Benjamín López Toledo is a Mexican graphic artist. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, where he studied graphic arts with Guillermo Silva Santamaria...

, Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington

Leonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.-Early life:...

, Mathias Goeritz, Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Álvarez Bravo

Manuel Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer.Álvarez Bravo was born in Mexico City on February 4, 1902. He came from a family of artists and writers, and met several other prominent artists who encouraged his work when he was young, including Tina Modotti and Diego Rivera...

, Elena Poniatowska and others, devoted to environmental protection and the defense of biodiversity in Mexico and Latinoamerica. Under his leadership the Group of 100 achieved in 1986 the official decree ensuring protection for the forests where the migratory monarch butterfly overwinters and in 1990 a permanent ban on the capture and commercialization of all seven species of sea turtle in Mexico. The Group was able to thwart the building of dams on the Usumacinta River that would have flooded 500 square kilometers of the Lacandon forest and submerged important Mayan ruins. For five years Aridjis spearheaded the defense of San Ignacio Lagoon, the gray whale nursery in Baja California, successfully preventing Mitsubishi and the Mexican government from building the world’s largest solar salt works at the lagoon. Thanks to Aridjis and the Group of 100 the government agreed to publish daily reports of air quality in Mexico City, leaded gasoline was phased out and lead content in pottery drastically reduced, construction of an airport extension which would have obliterated a bird and wildlife sanctuary in Lake Texcoco was halted, thousands of tons of powdered milk contaminated by fallout from Chernobyl were returned to Ireland before they could be distributed in Mexico and a program limiting the circulation of cars in Mexico City one day each week was put into practice by the city government.

In 1991 he conceived of, organized and presided over the first “Morelia Symposium: Approaching the Year 2000,” an international gathering of more than 40 prominent writers, scientists, environmentalists and representatives of indigenous peoples, to discuss the state of the planet and to establish a network for international cooperation. Among the participants were J.M.G. Le Clézio, Sherwood Rowland, Petra Kelly

Petra Kelly

Petra Karin Kelly was a German politician and activist. She was instrumental in founding the German Green Party, the first Green party to rise to prominence worldwide.- Early life :...

, Gert Bastian, Peter Raven, Lester Brown, Augusto Roa Bastos

Augusto Roa Bastos

Augusto Roa Bastos, was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor...

.

In 1992 he presented the Morelia Declaration, a statement on the environment signed by more than 1000 writers and scientists from 66 countries, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he spoke at the Global Forum with the Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...

, Petra Kelly

Petra Kelly

Petra Karin Kelly was a German politician and activist. She was instrumental in founding the German Green Party, the first Green party to rise to prominence worldwide.- Early life :...

, Tom Hayden, Ted Turner, and Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...

, among others.

In 1994 he organized and presided over the second “Morelia Symposium: Approaching the Year 2000.” The Second Morelia Declaration was presented at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. Aridjis obtained funding for both meetings from the Rockefeller Foundation.
In 2000 he organized and presided over “The Earth in the Year 2000,” a joint International PEN—UNESCO symposium of writers and scientists in alliance for sustainable development.

As a pioneer of Mexican civil society, Aridjis played a crucial role in raising environmental awareness and promoting public participation for solving environmental problems, as well as defending freedom of expression about environmental matters.

Public Service

While still in his thirties Homero Aridjis served as Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1980 he founded the Michoacan Institute of Culture, and as its Director General held an historic international poetry festival, established public libraries throughout the state, founded Mexico’s first Museum of Mexican Masks, oversaw restoration of historical buildings, the recovery and restoration of colonial art, protection of cultural heritage, and promotion of cultural diversity in traditional celebrations throughout the state of Michoacan. All told h e organized and presided over three international poetry festivals, in Morelia in 1981 and Mexico City in 1982 and 1987, bringing to Mexico poets such as Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

, Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...

, Gunter Grass

Günter Grass

Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...

, Vasko Popa

Vasko Popa

- Biography :Popa was born in the village of Grebenac , Vojvodina, Serbia. After finishing high school, he enrolled as a student of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. He continued his studies at the University of Bucharest and in Vienna...

, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, Kazuko Shiraishi, Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes

Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...

, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...

, Andrey Voznesensky

Andrey Voznesensky

Andrei Andreyevich Voznesensky was a Soviet and Russian poet and writer who had been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of the greatest living poets in any language." He was one of the "Children of the '60s," a new wave of iconic Russian intellectuals led by the Khrushchev Thaw.Voznesensky was...

, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, W. S. Merwin

W. S. Merwin

William Stanley Merwin is an American poet, credited with over 30 books of poetry, translation and prose. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin's writing influence derived from...

, Lars Forssell, Marin Sorescu, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Blanca Varela, André du Bouchet, Eliseo Diego, Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach is a South African writer and painter with French citizenship.-Biography:Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, Western Cape, approximately 180 km from Cape Town and 100 km from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas...

and Mazisi Kunene.

In 1997, a coalition of seventeen centers led by American, Japan, Swedish and Belgian (Dutch-speaking) PEN nominated Aridjis for International President of the worldwide association of writers, and he was elected President at the International PEN Congress in Edinburgh, winning a second three-year term at the Moscow Congress held in 2000. He is the first PEN President living in Latin America. During his presidency he oversaw a complete revision of PEN’s constitution, achieved acceptance of Spanish as PEN’s third official language and led the organization in bettering its governance and accountability. In 2003 he was elected International PEN President Emeritus.

From April 2007 until the abolition of the post in January 2010 he was Mexico's ambassador to UNESCO, where he was a staunch defender of human rights, freedom of expression and cultural diversity and an outspoken critic of lack of transparency and accountability in the UNESCO bureaucracy.[1][2]

Teaching Activities

• Visiting professor, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1969.
• Visiting professor, New York University, 1969-1971.
• Visiting professor and writer-in-residence, Columbia University, 1979-1980.
• Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine, 2002.
• Poetry workshop at the Social Security Institute in Mexico City from 1986-1988.
• Inaugural J.H. Tans Lecture, University of Limburg, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 1991.
• Cecil Green Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 1993.
• Professor, “The Contemporary Novel” at Salzburg Seminar Session 354, Salzburg, Austria.
• Writer-in-Residence, The Sweet Briar Seminars 1999-2000 International Writers, Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, Virginia.
• Professor, Bennington Writing Seminar, Bennington College, Vermont, 2002.
• Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, 2007.

Awards and Honors

As a writer:

• Fellowship from the Mexican Writers’ Center (1959–60)
• Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for best book of the year, for Mirándola dormir (1965)
• Chosen by Henry Kissinger to take part in the International Seminar for Politics and Humanities, Harvard University, 1966.
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1966–1967 and 1979–1980)
• French government fellowship (1966–1968)
• Guest of the Berliner Kunstlerprogramm of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in West Berlin (1986 and 1988).
• Diana-Novedades Prize for Memorias del Nuevo Mundo, for the outstanding novel in Spanish (1988)
• Grinzane Cavour Prize for 1492, Vida y Tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla, best foreign novel translated into Italian, 1992
• 1492 Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile, New York Times Notable Book of the Year
• Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities, Indiana University (1993)
• Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy. (1994 & 2010)
• Festival de Poesía Ramón López Velarde, Zacatecas, Mexico, held in his honor, 1995.
• Prix Roger Caillois for the ensemble of his work as a poet and novelist, France (1997)
• Smederevo Golden Key for Poetry, Serbia (2002)
• First Erendira State Prize for the Arts, Michoacan, Mexico (2005).
• Emeritus Member, National System of Creative Artists, Mexico, since 1999
• Honorary member, Hellenic Authors Society.

As an environmentalist:

• Global 500 Award from the United Nations Environment Program on behalf of the Group of 100
• Latin Trade magazine’s Environmentalist of the Year
• José Maria Morelos Medal, the state of Michoacan’s highest award
• John Hay Award from the Orion Society “for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature,” bestowed during a colloquium of writers and scientists in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico
• Natural Resources Defense Council Force for Nature Award Green Cross Millennium Prize for International Environmental Leadership, given by Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green (also awarded to his wife, Betty Ferber)

See also

• International PEN
• NOVA: The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3601_butterflies.html

Notes
1.^ Culturebase.net | The international artist database | Homero Aridjis at www.culturebase.net
2.^ http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/cultural.htm#Spanish
3.^ http://www.dickrussell.org/articles/poetryinmotion.htm
4.^ http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=3244

Further reading

Bibliography
English:

• Blue Spaces / Los espacio azules, Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis, edited with an Introduction by Kenneth Rexroth, The Seabury Press, 1974
• Exaltation of Light, Boa Editions, 1981 (translated by Eliot Weinberger)
• Persephone, Aventura/Vintage Books, 1986 (translated by Betty Ferber)
• 1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezón of Castile, Summit Books, 1991 (translated by Betty Ferber)
• The Lord of the Last Days : Visions of the Year 1000, William Morrow, 1995 (translated by Betty Ferber)
• Eyes to See Otherwise / Ojos de otro mirar, Selected and Edited by Betty Ferber and George McWhirter, Carcanet, 2001, New Directions, 2002

(translated by Philip Lamantia, Kenneth Rexroth, W. S. Merwin, Jerome Rothenberg, George McWhirter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Eliot Weinberger

• Solar Poems, City Lights Publishers, 2010 (translated by George McWhirter)

Spanish:

POETRY

• Los ojos desdoblados, Ed. La Palabra, Mexico, 1960.
• Antes del reino, Ed. Era, Mexico, 1963.
• Mirándola dormir, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1964.
• Perséfone, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, 1967.
• Ajedrez-Navegaciones, Ed. Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1969.
• Los espacios azules, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1969.
• Quemar las naves, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1975.
• Vivir para ver, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1977.
• Construir la muerte, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1982.
• Imágenes para el fin del milenio & Nueva expulsión del paraíso, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1990.
• El poeta en peligro de extinción, Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, Mexico, 1992.
• Tiempo de ángeles, Espejo de Obsidiana, Mexico, 1994.
• Ojos de otro mirar, Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, Mexico, 1998.
• El ojo de la ballena, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2001.
• Los poemas solares, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2005.
• Diario de sueños, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2011.

NOVELS

• La tumba de Filidor, Ed. La Palabra, Mexico, 1961.
• El poeta niño, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1971.
• El encantador solitario, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1973.
• 1492 vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla, Ed. Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1985.
• Memorias del nuevo mundo, Editorial Diana, Mexico, 1988.
• La leyenda de los soles, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1993.
• El señor de los últimos días: Visiones del año mil, Alfaguara, Mexico, 1994.
• ¿En quién piensas cuando haces el amor?, Alfaguara, Mexico, 1996.
• La montaña de las mariposas, Alfaguara, Mexico, 2000.
• La zona del silencio, Alfaguara, Mexico, 2002.
• El hombre que amaba el sol, Alfaguara, Mexico, 2005.
• Sicarios, Alfaguara, Mexico, 2007.
• Los invisibles, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2010.

SHORT FICTION

• Noche de independencia, Ed. Ultramar, Salvat, Madrid, 1978.
• Playa nudista y otros relatos, Ed. Argos Vergara, Barcelona, 1982.
• La Santa Muerte, Alfaguara, Mexico, 2004.

DRAMA

• Espectáculo del año dos mil y Moctezuma, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, México, 1981.
• El último Adán, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, México, 1986.
• Gran teatro del fin del mundo, Joaquín Mortiz, México, 1989.

NON-FICTION

• Apocalipsis con figuras, Taurus, Mexico, 1997.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

• El silencio de Orlando, Alfaguara Infantil, Mexico, 2000.
• El día de los perros locos, Alfguara Infantil, Mexico, 2003.
• El tesoro de la noche triste (Vuelven los perros locos), Alfaguara Infantil, Mexico, 2005.
• La búsqueda de Archelon (Odisea de las siete tortugas), Alfaguara, Mexico, 2006.

POETRY ANTHOLOGIES

• Antología, Ed. Lumen, Barcelona, 1976.
• Antología poética, Ocnos Editores, Barcelona, 1976.
• Sobre una ausencia, Akal Editor, Madrid, 1977.
• Obra poética 1960-1986, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1987.
• Obra poética 1960-1990, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico, 1991.
• Antologia poetica 1960-1994, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1994.
• Ojos de otro mirar: Poesía 1960-2001, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2002.
• Infancia de luz, Ediciones SM, Mexico, 2003.
• Antología poética, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2009.

CRITICAL ANTHOLOGIES

• Poesía en movimiento: México 1915-66, Ed. Siglo XXI, México, 1966, with Octavio Paz, Alí Chumacero and Jose Emilio Pacheco.
• 330 grabados originales de Manuel Manilla, Homero Aridjis and Arsacio Vanegas Arroyo, Editorial A. Vanegas Arroyo, Mexico, 1971.
• Seis poetas latinoamericanos de hoy, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York, 1972.
• New Poetry of Mexico, E.H. Dutton, New York, 1972; Secker and Warburg, London, 1974.
• Heimwee naar de dood: Zeven Mexicaanse dichters van deze eeuw, Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1974.
• Savremena poezija Meksika, Bagdala, Belgrade, 1976.
• Snabbare an tanken ror sig bilden: Modern Mexikansk poesi, with Pierre Zekeli, Fibs Lyrikklubs, Stockholm, 1979.
• Antología del Primer Festival Internacional de Poesía, Morelia 1981, Ed. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico 1982.
• Antología del Festival Internacional de Poesía de la Ciudad de México, El Tucán de Virginia, Mexico, 1988.
• Artistas e intelectuales sobre el Ecocidio Urbano, with Fernando Cesarman, Consejo de la Crónica de la Ciudad de México, Mexico, 1989.

RECORDINGS

• Recording of his poetry for the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1966.
• The World's Greatest Poets Reading at the Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy, Spanish Poets, Volume I, Applause Productions, Inc., New York, 1968.
• Homero Aridjis: antología poética, Voz Viva de México, UNAM, Mexico, 1969.
• Poetry International 1973, Rotterdamse Kunststichting, Rotterdam, 1973.
• Homero Aridjis: Ojos de otro mirar, Entre voces, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2003.

Secondary Literature:

• Latin American Novels of the Conquest : Reinventing the New World / Kimberle S. Lopez, University of Missouri Press, 2002
• “El deseo colonial en 1492 y Memorias del Nuevo Mundo de Homero Aridjis,” Kimberle s. Lopez, read at the Sexto Congreso de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea, El Paso, Texas, March 1–4, 2001.
• "La luz queda en el aire", Estudios internacionales en torno a Homero Aridjis, ed. Thomas Stauder. Vervuert Verlag, 2005
• Mexico in the 21st century: selected essays / Alina Camacho Rivero de Gingerich., 2003
• Actualización de temas precolombinos en tres poetas contemporaneos Mexicanos / María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba., 1979
• Homero Aridjis : neoliberalismo y ficción narrativa en En quién piensas cuando haces el amor? / Stéphanie Valdés-Besson., 2005
• “El último Adán: Visión apocalíptica de la ciudad en la narrativa de Homero Aridjis”, Lucia Guerra, Contexto, vol. 6, No. 8, 2002
• “La fantasia milenarista de Homero Aridjis,” Summa crítica, Saul Yurkievich, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1997.

External links

• Texas Observer Book Review Texas Observer Book Review
• Biography from the international literature festival berlin http://www.literaturfestival.com/bios1_3_6_112.html
• Group of 100. Group of 100
• Approaching the End of the Millennium, Inter-American Development Bank1995
• http://www.saber.ula.ve/bitstream/123456789/18903/1/lucia_guerra.pdf
• Homero Aridjis' 2009 publication from City Lights, Solar Poems Homero Aridjis' 2009 publication from City Lights, Solar Poems

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