Liberty in Mexico: Writings on Liberalism from the Early Republican Period to the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Octavio Paz

541 octavio Paz Octavio Paz (1914–98) was born in Mexico City. A poet and essayist, Paz is probably the twentieth century’s most famous and universally known intellectual from the Spanish-speaking world. He received numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, primarily for his poetry but also for his many essays on culture and politics. He founded important literary magazines, such as Vuelta. In his writings Paz reflected on liberty, modernity, history , art, liberalism, revolution, democracy, and the identity of Mexico and Latin America. Many of his texts dwell on the relation between politics and art. Early on he became disillusioned with communism and thus became a critic of communist regimes. We present three texts by Paz that examine liberty and liberalism : a speech given on the occasion of receiving the Cervantes Prize (1981), a speech pronounced on the occasion of receiving the Alfonso Reyes Prize (1985), and a speech given on the occasion of receiving the Alexis de Tocqueville Prize (1989). ...