Diana's Tree

Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) was born in Buenos Aires to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. She studied at the University of Buenos Aires before dropping out to concentrate on painting and her own poetry. She moved to Paris in 1960, where she got to know Octavio Paz, Julio Cortazar, and Silvina Ocampo. Now regarded as one of Argentina's most powerful and intense lyric poets of the mid-20th century, Pizarnik's sometimes bleak themes - cruelty and death run prominently in her work - reflect her own personal torments, some deriving from her amphetamine dependency.Pizarnik published a number of poetry collections in her lifetime, as well as essays. Her work has been extensively translated in recent years, reflecting the recovery of her work by non-Hispanic readers and her growing international reputatio.