When, on November sixteenth last, the newspapers announced the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature to a Chilean poetess, Gabriela Mistral, the news came as a surprise to many Americans, who, although they considered themselves well read, had never heard her name. The fundamental reason we know so little of this remarkable woman who enjoys such a great popularity in the Spanish-speaking world, not only for her words but for her deeds, is because the limited number of her poems which have been translated into English, by heavy hands, for the most part, allow hardly a glimmer of the real Mistral to shine through them. Of course, all translation of poetry is difficult but that of Gabriela extremely so because of her unique selection of words. She has created a plant that does not grow on English soil.