The poet provocateur

Publishing his first poem at age 16, Mr. Paz went on to win the world's most prestigious literary prizes, including the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. The son of a socialist, he became one of the world's most vocal critics of the totalitarian systems that socialism spawned, including, early on, Fidel Castro's Cuba. Indeed, he rankled many leftist intellectuals, in Mexico and elsewhere, whom he described as blinded by romantic notions of revolution.

Then again, Mr. Paz was not one to accept prevailing wisdom unquestioningly. His masterful essay, The Labyrinth of Solitude, both angered and illuminated many with its dissection of the conflicted Mexican psyche. He found fault with savage capitalism, too. ``The market, blind and deaf, is not fond of literature or of risk,'' he once said. ``Its censorship is not ideological: It has no ideas. It knows all about prices but nothing of values.''

Values, though, led him to resign after 23 years as a diplomat when Mexico's government brutally repressed protesters in 1968. A modern Renaissance man, Mr. Paz enriched the world with his restless mind and humanity.