Alejandra Pizarnik

Argentine poet.

A year after entering the department of Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pizarnik published her first book of poetry, La tierra más ajena (1955). She took courses in literature, journalism, and philosophy at the university, but never received her degree. Soon after, she studied painting with Juan Batlle Planas. Pizarnik followed her debut work with two more volumes of poems, La última inocencia (1956) and Las aventuras perdidas (1958).

From 1960 to 1964 Pizarnik lived in Paris. There she worked for the journal Cuadernos, sat on the editorial board of the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles, and participated in the Parisian literary world. She translated authors such as Antonin Artaud, Henri Michaux, Aimé Césaire and Yves Bonnefoy into Spanish, and studied religious history and French literature at the Sorbonne. While in Paris, she also developed friendships with Julio Cortázar, Rosa Chacel and Octavio Paz. Paz wrote the prologue for her fourth book of poetry, Árbol de Diana (1962), which reflected the greater maturity she had gained during her stay in Europe.

She returned to Buenos Aires in 1964, and published her most well-known books of poetry: Los trabajos y las noches (1965), Extracción de la piedra de la locura (1968) and El infierno musical (1971).

She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1968, and in 1971 a Fulbright Scholarship.

Death[edit]

Pizarnik ended her life on 25 September 1972 by taking an overdose of Secobarbital sodium at the age of 36.