An Introduction to Octavio Paz

“Ruy-Sánchez has become one of our best essayists. His writing is agile, his intelligence is acute but not cruel, his compassionate spirit without condescendence nor complicity.”
– Octavio Paz

“With no aspirations to be a totalizing work, but rather; as indicated by its title, an introduction (and not ‘the’ introduction) [it] certainly archives its aim to approach the life, work, and thinking of the poet.”
– Sergio Tellez-Pon

An Introduction to Octavio Paz provides readers with a valuable and concise introduction to the work and ideas of world renowned Mexican writer, and Nobel Prize winner, Octavio Paz. Written and edited by Alberto Ruy Sánchez, a well-respected and awarding winning writer whom Paz considered one of Mexico’s best essayists. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the vast literary, intellectual and poetic legacy of Mexico’s greatest writer. Paz thought of poetry as revelatory creation and activity, and Ruy Sánchez takes this idea as a guide for his book, as he unravels Paz’s complex life and huge bibliography. For every reader who wants to look deep into the literary labyrinth of Mexico’s emblematic writer, this concise and solid book proves an indispensable handbook.

Alberto Ruy-Sánchez is an award winning and highly respected writer of essays, novels, poetry and short stories. A Ph.D. graduate of the University of Paris, he studied with Barthes, Deleuze and Rancière, in 2005 he received the Grand Order of National Merit for authors. In 2006, he received the Juan Pablos Award, and in 2012, the St. Petersburg Lee Prize. For this book, Ruy Sánchez was awarded the Jose Fuentes Mares Prize for Literature and recognized as a Fellow of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.