Alfonso Reyes (1889-1959) was the leading Mexican writer of his time. He was revered by his great successor Octavio Paz, a writer who, like himself, was also an Ambassador. Enormously prolific, he was a master of the essay, that “most Latin-American of art forms” and an outstanding critic. He knew Hispanic and classical literature, and translated Homer, Sterne, Chesterton, Stevenson, Shaw, and Chekhov. In turn, Samuel Beckett translated some of his poems into English; some of his essays, too, can be read in English.