Raúl A. Zurita

Raul Zurita started out studying mathematics before turning to poetry. His early work is a ferocious response to the Chilean September 11, which took place in 1973 when Pinochet took power in the Golpe de Estado. Like many Chileans, Zurita was arrested and tortured. When he was released, he helped to form a radical artistic group CADA, and became renowned for his provocative and intensely physical public performances. 

In the early 1980s, Zurita famously sky-wrote passages from his poem, The New Life, over Manhattan and later (still during the reign of Pinochet) he bulldozed the phrase Ni Pena Ni Miedo (Without Pain Or Fear) into the Atacama Desert, where it can still be seen because children in the neighboring town bring shovels into the desert and turn over the sand in the letters.

For 15 years, Zurita worked on a trilogy which is considered one of the signal poetic achievements in Latin American poetry: Purgatory appeared in 1979, Ante-paradise in 1982, and The New Life in 1993. Raul Zurita is one of a handful of the most important contemporary Latin American poets, and he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Literary Prize of Chile.