The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India
Octavio Paz spent six years as Mexico's ambassador to India, and it reshaped everything he wrote after.
Indranil Chakravarty follows the Mexican poet through his years in Delhi, where he read Indian philosophy, married, and wrote some of his best work. The book is unusual in being genuinely informed about both cultures rather than treating one as exotic backdrop for the other, and it takes Paz’s engagement with Indian thought seriously rather than as a phase.
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Tyler Cowen
Indranil Chakravarty, The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India. Imagine a book that is interesting about both the cultures of Mexico and India. In addition to the one by Octavio Paz, that is. I lapped this one up eagerly, and I note it also has good coverage on the relationships between different Latin American writers and poets.
Source · January 2026
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