José Emilio Pacheco

José Emilio Pacheco Berny (1939–2014) was a Mexican poet, novelist, essayist and translator, widely regarded as one of the leading figures of Mexican literature in the second half of the twentieth century.

Born in Mexico City, he began publishing in student journals while studying at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and later taught at universities in Mexico, the United States, Canada and England.

His poetry — collected in volumes including Los elementos de la noche (1963), No me preguntes cómo pasa el tiempo (1969) and Ciudad de la memoria (1989) — is marked by spare, unornamented language and a sustained preoccupation with time, memory and social change.

In prose he is best known for the novella Las batallas en el desierto (1981), a portrait of a boy's first love set against a rapidly modernising Mexico City, and for the novel Morirás lejos (1967). He joined El Colegio Nacional in 1986, and in 2009 received both the Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana and the Premio Cervantes.

He died in Mexico City on 26 January 2014.