Gabriela Mistral Collection
Scope and Contents
The collection features 150 samples of correspondence by Chilean Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral, written between 1914 and 1957. The material shows Mistral’s personal relationships with friends and Chilean literary figures such as Manuel Magallanes Moure, Eduardo Barrios, and Hernán “Alone” Díaz Arrieta, among others. In the letters, Mistral shares personal reflections on her life and offers her opinions on the Latin American literary scene of the early 20th century.
Along with handwritten and typewritten letters and postcards, the collection features a series of the author's original poetry and essays, some of which are still unpublished. 18 photographs of the author and additional secondary source materials, such as newspaper clippings, music scores, and essays, complement the collection of Mistral correspondence.
Dates
- Creation: 1914-1980
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research; however, the series "Research files" is currently restricted.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Biographical / Historical
Gabriela Mistral remains one of the most highly regarded literary figures in Latin American history. Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in Vicuña, Chile in 1889, she began teaching and writing at the young age of 15. As a teacher, she had a profound impact in Chile and abroad, even working for Mexico’s Department of Education from 1922-1924, where she promoted literacy programs for young women and girls. Throughout Mistral’s career as a poet, she officially published six compilations: Desolación (1922), Ternura (1924), Tala (1938), Lagar (1954 ), Lagar II (1991), and Poema de Chile (1968). Her poems often center on themes of love, death, motherhood, religion, and nature. In 1945, she became the first Latin American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Aside from being a prolific poet and writer, Mistral also served as a representative of the UN’s International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation and as Chilean consul for a number of years after retiring from teaching in 1925. During this time, she lived in various countries across Latin America and Europe such as Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France. In 1953, she settled permanently in New York, where she died just four years later of pancreatic cancer.
Biographical / Historical
Manuel Magallanes Moure (1878-1924) was a Chilean author and poet who dedicated his life to journalism. He begins his friendship and correspondence with Mistral in 1914, when he encourages her to submit her poems to the Juegos Florales literary competition. Following Mistral’s letters to Magallanes, some scholars suggest that they were secretly in love for a few years.
Biographical / Historical
Eduardo Barrios (1884-1963) was considered one of Chile’s most important national authors of the 20th century, he was one of Mistral’s closest friends. The earliest letter in our collection from their correspondence dates to around 1915, although Barrios and Mistral likely began their friendship a few years earlier. Barrios’ most emblematic literary works include El niño que enloqueció de amor (1915), El hermano asno (1922), and Gran señor y rajadiablos (1948). He was also a frequent contributor to two of Chile’s national newspapers: La Nación and El Mercurio.
Biographical / Historical
Arturo Torres Ríoseco (1897-1971) was a Chilean literary critic who played an instrumental role in promoting Latin American literature within the United States. A good friend of Mistral, who called him “the universal Chilean”.
Biographical / Historical
José S. González Vera (1897-1970) was a Chilean author known for his humorous novels that detail ordinary Chilean life. González Vera included a biography of Gabriela Mistral in his 1959 book Algunos.
Biographical / Historical
Hernán Díaz Arrieta “Alone” (1891-1984) was an influential Chilean literary critic, author, and historian, he greatly contributed toward the preservation of Chilean literature. Throughout his 65+ year career, Díaz Arrieta published several books and wrote literary criticism for national newspapers like La Nación and El Mercurio. He is often credited with discovering some of the most influential voices in Chilean literature, including Pablo Neruda, Marta Brunet, Augusto D’Halmar, and Gabriela Mistral. Alone and Mistral had a strong and long-lasting friendship, as evidenced by our collection of 47 letters spanning the years 1915 to 1941.
Biographical / Historical
Carlos Díaz Anabalón (1920-1962), famously Carlos de Rokha, was one of the youngest voices of Chile's Generation of 1938, he was a widely celebrated surrealist poet. Díaz Anabalón was the son of Pablo and Winett de Rokha, some of the most famous and influential poets in Chile.
Full Extent
1.25 Cubic Feet (2 legal document cases and 1 half legal document case)
Language of Materials
Spanish; Castilian
Arrangement
The collection is in chronological order and broken out by the recipient. There is a series of restricted materials entitled "Research Files". Series contains restricted materials created and compiled by a previous processing archivist researching the collection. These can be made available upon request.
Processing Information
Minimal processing of the collection was started around the 1990s-2000s. At this time, research files were created containing printouts, articles, and biographical notes made regarding Gabriela Mistral and her correspondents. The series “Research Files” (MSH/LAT 0016-00-01) contains these materials and can be made available upon request.
Materials from both accessions were interfiled at the time of processing in 2025-2026. Additionally, some materials were sent to conservation for preservation. This included deacidification and mending as needed. These are noted at the file level.
Dating of letters was completed during the 2026 processing. Some dates and ranges are derived from outside research and known information on Mistral. All research was documented by Rocío Colón Cotto and can be made available upon request.
Subject
- Magallanes Moure, Manuel (Person)
- Barrios, Eduardo (Barrios Hudtwalcker), 1884-1963 (Person)
- Torres-Rioseco, Arturo, 1897-1971 (Person)
- González Vera, José Santos, 1897-1970 (Person)
- Díaz Arrieta, Hernán, 1891-1984 (Person)
- Rokha, Carlos de (Carlos Díaz Anabalón), 1920-1962 (Person)
- Title
- A Guide to the Gabriela Mistral Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Rocío Colón Cotto and Payton Philips Quintanilla with Grace Thomsen
- Date
- 2026 February
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the University of Notre Dame Rare Books & Special Collections Repository