Biography

Homero Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoácan, Mexico, on April 6, 1940.

He is the author of 38 books of poetry, fiction, drama, and children's stories, many of which have been translated into a dozen languages. Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis, a bilingual anthology of his poetry, was published in the United States in 2002.

In 1985 he founded the Group of 100, an association of writers and artists working in defense of the environment, and has been its president since then. Thanks to the efforts of the Group of 100, a ban on the capture and commercialization of sea turtles was decreed by the government, daily reports of air quality levels in Mexico City were published, the nesting areas of the Monarch butterfly were given official protection, lead was eliminated from gasoline, a project to build dams along the Usumacinta River was thwarted, and a program limiting the circulation of cars in Mexico City one day each week was put into practise. Beginning in 1995, the Group of 100 spearheaded a successful international campaign to prevent the building of a massive saltworks at the gray whale breeding ground and nursery in Laguna San Ignacio, in Baja California Sur.

Aridjis has won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, Diana-Novedades Prize, Grinzane-Cavour Prize, Prix Roger Caillois, Smederevo Golden Key, Erendira State Prize for the Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the UNEP Global 500 Award, Orion Society's John Hay Award, NRDC's Force for Nature Award, and Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green's International Environmental Leadership Award.

Former Mexican Ambassador to Switzerland and the Netherlands, Aridjis also served as president of International PEN from 1997 to 2003. He was recently appointed Mexican Ambassador to UNESCO.