Paz attains Nobel stature.

• Author: Goethals, Henry
• Position: Mexican writer Octavio Paz - !Ojo! - Column

"Sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity" were the words used by the Swedish Academy of Letters October 11 in awarding the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature to Octavio Paz, Mexico's prolific essayist, philosopher, translator and man of letters for more than 60 years.

The prize, which is worth $703,000, "means a great deal for a writer, not as a passport to immortality but for the possibility to have a wider audience," the 76-year-old Paz told the press at New York City's Drake Hotel where he was staying when he received the news.

For many years a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Paz admitted to surprise when informed that he had been selected. In previous years, he said, "I was, in some way, waiting ..." But this time, he added, "I didn't have the slightest idea."

Paz thus becomes the fifth Latin American literary figure in recent years to win the coveted award. Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral won the prize in 1945, Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias in 1967, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in 1971, and Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia' Marquez in 1982.

Paz is a celebrated intellectual who moves easily between the world of literature and politics. He has served in Mexico's diplomatic corps and is equally at home in Mexico, the U.S. or Europe.

"The Labyrinth of Solitude," (1950) for which Paz is best known, is a classic study of modern Mexico. His poetry has undergone continuing evolution of form, style and themes since he started writing at a young age. "Sun Stone," published in 1963, is perhaps his bestknown long poem, taking its form from the Aztec calendar. "The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz," an...