Ida Vitale

Ida Vitale is a Uruguayan poet and translator born in 1923 in Montevideo. She is one of the greatest living poets in the Spanish language, associated with the renowned Generation of 1945 alongside such figures as Mario Benedetti, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Idea Vilariño. She has lived through political exile, spending years in Mexico, before returning to Uruguay and later moving to Austin, Texas. Vitale has published more than twenty collections of poetry over seven decades, including La luz de esta memoria (1949), Palabra dada (1953), Cada uno en su noche (1960), Jardín de sílice (1980), and Reducción del infinito (2002). Her poetry is known for its austerity, precision, and depth — a concentrated lyric vision that extracts maximum meaning from minimal language. She received the Premio Cervantes in 2018, the highest honor in Spanish-language literature. She is also one of the most distinguished literary translators in the Spanish-speaking world, with major translations from Italian, French, and English. Vitale continues to write and publish into her 10th decade and is regarded as one of the great living poets in any language.