Octavio Paz

Re “Octavio Paz, Mexico’s Everyman,” editorial, April 21:

I first read “The Labyrinth of Solitude” when I was a student at Cal State Fullerton and chairman of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan). This literary masterpiece changed my life forever. I’m very grateful for his love of Aztec civilization and its moral values, which still have meaning to the “Everyman in Mexico” and throughout the Southwest.

Octavio Paz and his books of poetry and philosophy greatly influenced the beginning of the Chicano movement in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. Even today, “The Labyrinth of Solitude” is required reading in Chicano studies classes in most universities.

JAIME VEGA RODRIGUEZ

Santa Ana

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Thanks for making a poet (and refreshingly, a thinker) a front-page story (April 21). At first I was a little stunned that you ended his obituary with an ad of women in lingerie, but then I remembered that Paz considered surrealism a serious influence on his own craft.

KEATS JAYNES

San Pedro