Gorostiza Acalá, José (1901–1973)

José Gorostiza Acalá (b. 10 November 1901; d. 16 March 1973), Mexican poet and diplomat. He and his brother Celestino were major intellectual figures in Mexico and were members of the Contemporáneos intellectual circle with Jaime Torres Bodet. Octavio Paz considered Gorostiza to be a major Latin American poet.

A native of Villahermosa, Tabasco, Gorostiza began teaching at the National Preparatory School in 1921 and published his first book of poems in 1925. Joining the foreign service, he became first chancellor in London in 1927, after which he served as head of the fine arts department in public education. He returned to the foreign service where, in the 1930s and 1940s, he held a series of posts abroad, including ones in Italy, Guatemala, and Cuba. In 1950 he became ambassador to Greece and, a year later, permanent representative to the United Nations. He culminated his career as undersecretary of foreign relations (1953–1964), serving briefly as secretary in 1964. He won the National Literary Prize in 1968.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Merlin H. Forster, "The Contemporáneos, 1915–1932: A Study in Twentieth-Century Mexican Letters" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1960).

Andrew P. Debicki, La poesía de José Gorostiza (1962).

José Gorostiza, Death Without End, translated by Laura Villaseñor (1969).

Juan Gelpí, Enunciación y dependencia en José Gorostiza (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Escalante, Evodio. José Gorostiza: Entre la redención y la catástrofe. México: Ediciones Casa Juan Pablos, 2001.

Gómez Montero, Vicente, and Miguel Angel Ruiz Magdo-nel. José Gorostiza, la palabra infinita. Chimalistac, Mexico, D.F.: CONACULTA, 2001.

Ruiz Abreu, Alvaro, and José Gorostiza. Crítica sin fin: José Gorostiza y sus críticos. México, D.F.: CONACULTA, 2004.

                                        Roderic Ai Camp