Homero Aridjis

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Homero Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacán, Mexico, on April 6, 1940, to a Greek father and Mexican mother; he was the youngest of five brothers. [1]. As a child, Aridjis would walk every afternoon to a hillside near his home to watch the migrating butterflies. This he continued throughout his life until the trees were removed to be used as firewood. This and other events in his life caused him to co-found the Grupo de los Cien, the Group of the one hundred. This was a group of one hundred artists and intellectuals that became heavily involved in trying to draw attention to and fix environmental problems.

His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964; the Dian-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla. In 2000 The Orion Society presented him with its John Hay Award for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature. In 2001 he received the Smederevo Golden Key Prize for his poetry. Along with being a great writer Aridjis has served as an ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland. He is the President of International PEN, a worldwide association of writers. Its purpose is to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. He now lives in Mexico with his wife Betty Ferber who serves as a translator for some of his works.[2] The couple have two daughters, Eva Aridjis a filmmaker in New York and writer Chloe Aridjis in Berlin.

There is talk of Homero advising the new Calderon government's environmental policy.

Poem:

Rain in the Night
It rains in the night
on the old roofs and the wet streets

on the black hills
and on the temples in the dead cities

In the dark I hear the ancestral music of the rain
its ancient footfall
its dissolving voice

More rapid than the dreams of men
the rain makes roads through the air

makes trails through the dust
longer than the footstep of men.

Tomorrow we will die
die twice over

Once as individuals
a second time as a species

and between the bolts of lightning and the white seeds
scattered through the shadows

there’s time for a complete examination of conscience
time to tell the human story

It rains
It will rain in the night