by Octavio Paz

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.

Events in History at the Time of the Essay

From the conquest...