Poet, Nobel Prize Recipient. Vicente Aleixandre received international acclaim as an award-winning 20th century Spanish poet, receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977. According to the Nobel Prize citation, he was given the award " "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars." He was unable to personally accept the Nobel Prize, but sent an acceptance speech that was read. He was the recipient of the Spanish National Prize for Literature in 1934 for his collection of poems in free verse on death, "Destruction or Love." Although no monetary award, he received the Spanish Literary Prize for Criticism in 1963 for the "In A Vast Domain" and in 1969 for "Poems of Consummation." Born the son of a railroad engineer, his three siblings died before their third birthday, but he had a beloved sister. Relocating from his hometown to Malaga, he studied with poet Emilo Prados before moving to Madrid to study law and commerce. In 1919 he graduated from the University of Madrid with a law degree and became a professor of Commercial Law from 1920 to 1922 at the Madrid School of Commerce, but during his summer breaks from teaching, he studied with other poets and read Sigmund Freud. He published his first collection of poems, "Revista de Occidente" in 1926. Being one of the ten chartered members, he was a member of the Spanish poets group, the Generation of '27. He had chronic health problems after being diagnosed with tuberculosis nephritis in 1925 following with a nephrectomy in 1932. During this time, he wrote "Swords Like Lips" in 1932 and "Destruction or Love" in 1935. When the Spanish Civil War started in 1936, he was arrested for a short time for his political beliefs and for protesting against the terror and censorship of Spanish Dictator Franciso Franco's regime. During this time, his home was bombed. His health declined as he was starving, losing weight and spending the last two months of the war bedridden. Even though his situation was atrocious, many of the Generation of '27 poets were either murdered, force in exile or jailed for years. After the war, he choose to remain in Spain, rebuilt his home but did not change his political views. World War II began shortly afterwards. Between 1939 and 1943 he wrote one of his most important books, "Shadow of Paradise," which was published in 1944. On January 22, 1950, he read his speech at the Royal Spanish Academy, "Life of the Poet: Love and Poetry." He wrote in three styles: Pure poetry, surrealism after reading Freud, and old age poetry. He had gained the reputation of having love affairs with a long list of noted men and women. Years after his death, his letters to others gave evidence publicly of this. He died of a gastric bleed and was buried in his family's tomb. His works have been translated into two English publications: "Twenty Poems of Vicente Aleixandre" in 1977 and "A Longing for the Light" in 1979.