Chile has a strong literary legacy and has produced two Nobel laureates, poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda. Gabriela Mistral was born in Salamanca, Spain, on July 2, 1889. She married Juan Antonio Echeverría Álvarez, a lawyer, and had three children. In 1920, she came to Chile where she worked as a schoolteacher and writer. The Nobel Prize committee awarded her the prize in 1945 for her work as a poet, novelist, and playwright from 1919 to 1944. She is considered one of the founders of modern Chilean poetry. Pablo Neruda was born in Malaga, Spain, on January 4, 1904. He moved with his family to Chile when he was five years old and attended high school in Costa Rica. After graduating from university, he started working as a journalist. In 1935, he became involved in politics and served as foreign minister under President Eduardo Frei Montalva. In 1940, he was elected senator of Chile for three consecutive terms. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972 for his work as a poet, essayist, translator, and public intellectual. Neruda died in Santiago on September 23, 1973, at the age of 47.