Daniel Sada (25 February 1953 Mexicali, Baja California – 18 November 2011 Mexico DF) was a Mexican poet journalist and author whose work has being hailed as one of the most important contributions to the Spanish language.[1] He has organised many poetry workshops in Mexico City and several other cities. He was granted a scholarship by the INBA and FONCA and, since 1994, is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte. His novels stand out for their internal rhythm and unorthodox use of archaic metric forms and colloquialisms.[2] His work has been described as baroque and tragicomic. Author Juan Villoro stated: "He renewed the Mexican novel with Because it seems to be a lie, the truth is never known" and, according to cult writer Roberto Bolaño: "Daniel Sada is undoubtly writing one of the most ambitious works in the Spanish language". Rafael Lemus says: "Sada...is one of the most extreme reformers of the (Spanish) language, the boldest among Mexicans".[3] In 2008 he won the prestigious Herralde Prize for his novel Almost Never.[4][5] He has also won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1992 and the Jose Fuentes Mares National Literature Prize in 1999.[6] His works have been translated into English, German, French, Dutch, Bulgarian and Portuguese.[7] In 2011 he was awarded Mexico's prestigious National Prize for Arts and Sciences in the Literature category. Just hours after being presented the prize, Sada died at age 58 from a years-long struggle with kidney disease.[6]
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Sada was born in Mexicali in 1953. He studied journalism and Spanish literature in Sacramento, Coahuila devouring the works of Dante and Ovid. He has described his early influences and his first contacts with literature and the metric structures he admired: "I have a deep knowledge, from childhood, of the most elemental constructions of these metric forms, so characteristic of Spanish. In my primary school in Sacramento, Coahuila, Panchita Cabrera, a rural schoolteacher who was an ardent fan of the Spanish Golden Age (a type that no longer exists) taught us these phonetic techniques with one goal in mind: that we might fine-tune our ears in order to appreciate the expressive delicacy and virulence of our language".[2] He has been professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, The Hispanic Academy of San Miguel de Allende and the school of journalism Carlos Setién Garcia.