SOURCE: Parra, Nicanor, and Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier. “Nicanor Parra.” In Interviews with Latin American Writers, pp. 173-97. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1989.

In the following interview, Gautier and Parra discuss his later work, in particular his commitment to what he calls “eco-poetry.”

Nicanor Parra was born on September 5, 1914, in Chillán, Chile, the land that has given birth to some of the most outstanding Latin American poets. In 1937, when he was twenty-three, he graduated in mathematics and physics from the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile. That same year, he was awarded Chile's Municipal Prize for his first book of poems, Cancionero sin nombre (Nameless Songs). Gabriela Mistral, his illustrious compatriot and winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize, said of him, “We have come face to face with a poet who will reach international fame.”

Nicanor Parra belongs to the Generation of 1938, which characterized itself with the...