Octavio Paz was born in Mexico City in 1914 in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. His father, a journalist and lawyer deeply involved in the Revolution, was rarely home, so Paz was raised mainly by his mother, aunt, and grandfather, whose library of Mexican writers and European classics supplemented his education in a French Catholic school. In 1943, after establishing himself as a poet, Paz left Mexico for 11 years, living first in the United States and then in Paris, France, as a diplomat. It was during this time that he wrote The Labyrinth of Solitude, his best-known essay. In the post-war desolation of France, Paz confronted Mexico’s history of uprootedness and alienation and sought to escape from the solitude that then seemed to have encompassed the world.
From the conquest and colonialism to Paz. In 1519 Hernán Cortés, who had been living in Cuba, landed off the coast of present-day southeastern Mexico with some 500 Spanish soldiers. His goal was to conquer the natives, convert them to Christianity, and fill his coffers with their gold in the process.
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