Chilean Poet & One of the Greatest Latin American Writers, Gonzalo Rojas died

Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas, who was forced into exile after the 1973 military coup died on 25 April 2011 at the age of 93. Considered one of the greatest Latin American writers, Rojas was the son of a coal miner and was born in 1917 in the port of Lebu, 600 kilometers south of Santiago.   His vast body of work includes his first poetry anthology The Misery of Man published in 1948, Against Death (1964), Dark (1977), Transtierro (1979), On lightning (1981) and From Water (2007).

He won several prestigious literary awards in his time: Cervantes Prize -- the top literary award for Spanish-language literature in 2003, the Chilean National Prize for Literature, the Queen Sofia Prize of Iberian American Poetry (awarded by the King of Spain), Mexico's Octavio Paz for Literature and the Jose Hernandez Prize of Argentina.

 In September 1973 Rojas was in Havana and was about to take over the job as Chile's ambassador. However he could not do so as general Augusto Pinochet launched a coup that toppled leftist president Salvador Allende. Rojas went into exile in Germany and later to moved to Venezuela. He moved back to Chile with his family in 1979.

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