Eduardo Lizalde Chávez (14 July 1929 – 25 May 2022) was a Mexican poet, scholar, and administrator who was born in Mexico City.
Lizalde was nicknamed as “El Tigre” for repeating themes in his work that sprang from his boyhood love of Salgari and Kipling stories. “From Biblical times till today, the tiger has been a fascinating figure, and I don’t believe there has ever been a writer who has never made a reference to tigers,” he says.
His father, an engineer, taught him to read at an early age and introduced him to literature. He also began writing early and published his first short poems in 1948, at the age of eighteen, in the magazine El Universal. His first full book of poems, “La Mala Hora”, was published when he was 27.
While studying literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), he also attended night classes at the National Conservatory of Music.
Shortly thereafter Lizalde, Enrique González Rojo, and Marco Antonio Montes de Oca started Poeticísmo, a literary movement that quickly fizzled out. Lizalde himself severely criticized the movement in his book Autobiografía de un Fracaso (Autobiography of a Failure), in which he said the movement’s goal was to create poetry with “originality, clarity and complexity” was so vague that, in reality, “there was nothing”. In fact, despite his continuing efforts to promote Mexican literature, Lizalde has expressed dissatisfaction with his own work and poetry in general, of which he has frequently said “no sirve para nada” (it’s useless).
Why Is Eduardo Lizalde Popular?
Eduardo Lizalde Chávez is one of the most recognized poetic voices of recent decades in Spain and the author of famous poetry books such as “El tigre en la casa”, “Cada cosa es Babel” and “La zorra enferma”. He died at the age of 93.
