Paz, Octavio

Octavio Paz is regarded as one of the foremost authors of the 20th century. He was born in Mixcoac near Mexico City the same year as the two leaders of the radical peasant movement, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, entered the capital. Paz's father, a lawyer, supported the revolutionary leader Zapata. Although his family was less affluent during the revolution than they had once been, Paz was brought up in comfortable circumstances in an educated family. He had access to the ten thousand books of his grandfather's library that were to form the basis of his erudition.