Gonzalo Rojas
Gonzalo Rojas Pizarro (December 20, 1916 – April 25, 2011) was a Chilean poet. His work is part of the continuing Latin American avant-garde literary tradition of the twentieth century. In 2003 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize. Life and career He was the seventh son of a coal mining engineer, born in the port town of Lebu, Chile. Later on, during his youth he was the editor of the magazine Antarctica in Santiago de Chile and University lecturer in Valparaiso. Between 1938-1941 he played a part in the surrealist group Mandrágora founded by Braulio Arenas, Teófilo Cid and Enrique Gómez Correa. Seven years later in 1948 his first book of poems was published in Santiago. He studied Law and Literature in the Instituto Pedagógico de la Universidad de Chile. He taught in a number of small schools, even a German School in Valparaíso, but was eventually hired (1947) in the University of Chile in Valparaíso (now the University of Valparaíso). In 1952 having finally earned his degree, he was awarded a professorship at the University of Concepción. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the Head of the Department of Spanish and later the Director of Summer Courses,