Juan Gelman (1930–2014) was a prestigious Argentine poet. A writer from childhood, he worked as a journalist and translator and was also a member of guerrilla organisations. In exile during the military dictatorship that took over in 1976, he returned to Argentina in 1988, although he was to settle in Mexico. Much of his life and writing were marked by the kidnapping and disappearance of his children and the search for his granddaughter, who was born in captivity. He was the fourth Argentine to be awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, following in the footsteps of Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Sabato and Adolfo Bioy Casares. He is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary poets writing in Spanish.
