The Permanent Representative of Chile to the Organization of American States (OAS), Ambassador Dario Paya, presented to the Hemispheric organization’s Columbus Library, on behalf of his government, the Documentary Fund of Gabriela Mistral’s Literary Legacy.

The material consists of more than 18,000 microfilmed original documents; type-written manuscripts, including poetry and prose; personal letters; editorials and consular and legal documents, among others.

Mistral was the first Latin American ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and did so in 1945.  The multi-talented Mistral was a poet, educator, and fierce feminist.  Her talents were first noticed with Sonetos de la Muerte, a collection of love poems, published in 1914

The Chilean diplomat asserted that the contribution meets the wish of Gabriela Mistral “for her legacy to be preserved in the House of the Americas, freely available to the citizens of the continent,” as was stipulated in the Donation Act of 2007, which was signed by the authorities of the Government of Chile and the Chilean poet’s donor and will executor, Doris Atkinson. Ambassador Paya thanked the work of the South American country’s Secretariat of Libraries, Archives and Museums (DIBAM), “whose team of researchers, librarians, experts, digitizers, and restorers made this donation possible.”