About
Alejandra Pizarnik, born Flora Alejandra Pizarnik in Avellaneda, Argentina, in 1936, is a major 20th-century poet. Of Russian Jewish immigrant background, she studied at the University of Buenos Aires and trained in painting with Juan Batlle Planas. She published her first collection, La tierra más ajena, in 1955. From 1960 to 1964, she lived in Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship, where she befriended Octavio Paz and Julio Cortázar and translated French poets. Her poetic work, marked by exile, night, silence, and death, includes Árbol de Diana (1962) and Los trabajos y las noches (1965). She also wrote the prose piece La condesa sangrienta (1971). She died in Buenos Aires in 1972.
* 1936-04-28 — † 1972-09-25
Major works
- La tierra más ajena (1955)poetry
- Árbol de Diana (1962)poetry
- Los trabajos y las noches (1965)poetry
- Extracción de la piedra de la locura (1968)poetry
- La condesa sangrienta (1971)prose
Key milestones
- 1960Moves to Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship.
- 1968Receives a second Guggenheim Fellowship.
- 1972Dies in Buenos Aires from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Themes
exilenightsilencedeathlimits of language
Sources: britannica.com · poetryfoundation.org · jwa.org