- Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Peace, 1980
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born November 26, 1931) is an Argentine human rights activist, community organizer, pacifist, art painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.
- Bernardo Houssay, Physiology or Medicine, 1947
Bernardo Alberto Houssay (April 10, 1887 – September 21, 1971) was an Argentine physiologist who, in 1947, received one half Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the role played by pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of blood sugar (glucose) in animals. He is the first Argentine and Latin American Nobel laureate in the sciences.
- Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Peace, 1936
Carlos Saavedra Lamas (November 1, 1878 – May 5, 1959) was an Argentine academic and politician, and in 1936, the first Latin American Nobel Peace Prize recipient. In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor of France and analogous honors from ten other countries.
- Luis Federico Leloir, Chemistry, 1970
Luis Federico Leloir (September 6, 1906 – December 2, 1987) was an Argentine physician and biochemist who received the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Although his laboratories were often plagued by lack of financial support and second-rate equipment, his research into sugar nucleotides, carbohydrate metabolism, and renal hypertension has garnered international attention and fame and has led to significant progress in understanding, diagnosing and treating the congenital disease galactosemia.
- César Milstein, Physiology or Medicine, 1984
César Milstein (8 October 1927 – 24 March 2002) was a Argentinian biochemist, (nationalized British)] in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler.
- Gabriela Mistral, Literature, 1945
Gabriela Mistral (7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957) was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and feminist. She was the first Latin American (and, so far, the only Latin American woman) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she did in 1945 “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.” Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother’s love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences.
- Pablo Neruda, Literature, 1971
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973). He derived his pen name from the Czech poet Jan Neruda. In 1971 Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Neruda became known as a poet while he was still a teenager. He wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and erotically charged love poems.
- Gabriel García Márquez, Literature, 1982
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century, he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations.
- Oscar Arias Sánchez, Peace, 1987
Óscar Arias Sánchez (born September 13, 1940 in Heredia, Costa Rica) was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end the Central American crisis. Arias received the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize with the help of John Biehl, his peer in England, and Rodrigo Madrigal Nieto for his work towards the signing of the Esquipulas II Accords. This was a plan intended to promote democracy and peace on the Central American isthmus during a time of great turmoil. With the support of Arias, the various armed conflicts ended within the decade (Guatemala’s civil war finally ended in 1996).
- Miguel Ángel Asturias, Literature, 1967
Miguel Angel Asturias Rosales (October 19, 1899 – June 9, 1974) was a Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan poet-diplomat, novelist, playwright and journalist. Asturias helped establish Latin American literature’s contribution to mainstream Western culture, and at the same time drew attention to the importance of indigenous cultures, especially those of his native Guatemala. After decades of exile and marginalization, Asturias finally received broad recognition in the 1960s. In 1966, he won the Soviet Union’s Lenin Peace Prize. The following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, only the second Latin American to receive this honor.
- Rigoberta Menchú, Peace, 1992
Rigoberta Menchú Thum (born 9 January 1959) is an indigenous Guatemalan woman, of the K’iche’ ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life publicizing the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and to promote indigenous rights in the country. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. She is the subject of the testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983) and the author of the autobiographical work, Crossing Borders.
- Mario J. Molina, Chemistry, 1995
Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (born March 19, 1943 in Mexico City) is a Mexican chemist and one of the most prominent precursors to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. He was a co-recipient (along with Paul J. Crutzen and F. Sherwood Rowland) of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth’s ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases (or CFCs), becoming the first Mexican-born citizen to ever receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- Octavio Paz, Literature, 1990
Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet-diplomat and writer. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.
“There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot.”
Paz, Octavio. “Signs in Rotation” (1967), The Bow and the Lyre, trans. Ruth L.C. Simms (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), p. 249.
- Alfonso García Robles, Peace, 1982
Alfonso García Robles (20 March 1911 – 2 September 1991) was a Mexican diplomat and politician who, in conjunction with Sweden’s Alva Myrdal, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. García Robles received the peace prize as the driving force behind the Treaty of Tlatelolco, setting up a nuclear-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean. The agreement was signed in 1967 by most states in the region, though some states took some time to ratify the agreement.
- Vicente Aleixandre, Literature, 1977
Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo (April 26, 1898 – December 14, 1984) was a Spanish poet who was born in Seville. Aleixandre received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977 “for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man’s condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars”. He was part of the Generation of ’27.
- Jacinto Benavente, Literature, 1922
Jacinto Benavente y Martínez (12 August 1866 – 14 July 1954) was one of the foremost Spanish dramatists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922 “for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama”.
- Camilo José Cela, Literature, 1989
Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquis of Iria Flavia (11 May 1916 – 17 January 2002) was a Spanish novelist, short story writer and essayist associated with the Generation of ’36 movement. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature “for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man’s vulnerability”.
- José Echegaray, Literature, 1904
José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (April 19, 1832 – September 14, 1916) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and one of the leading Spanish dramatists of the last quarter of the 19th century. He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize for Literature “in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama”.
- Severo Ochoa, Physiology or Medicine, 1959
Severo Ochoa de Albornoz (24 September 1905 – 1 November 1993) was a Spanish – American physician and biochemist, and joint winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg, for his work on the synthesis of RNA.
- Juan Ramón Jiménez, Literature, 1956
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956 “for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistical purity”. One of Jiménez’s most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of “pure poetry.” A quotation from Jiménez, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way,” is the epigraph to Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.
- Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Physiology or Medicine, 1906
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1 May 1852 – 18 October 1934) was a Spanish pathologist, histologist, neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. His original pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain have led him to be designated by many as the father of modern neuroscience. His medical artistry was legendary, and hundreds of his drawings illustrating the delicate arborizations of brain cells are still in use for educational and training purposes.
- Baruj Benacerraf, Physiology or Medicine, 1980
Baruj Benacerraf (October 29, 1920 – August 2, 2011) was a Venezuelan-born American immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the “discovery of the major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface protein molecules important for the immune system’s distinction between self and non-self”. His colleagues and shared recipients were Jean Dausset and George Davis Snell.