Gabriela Mistral He was born in 1889 in Vicuña, a small town located where the Elqui Valley ends. Her father was a school teacher, a profession that she also practiced at the early age of 15. Very concerned about Chilean education, she wrote about the need for a law to ensure primary education. She is one of the most important writers in Chilean history, which earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945 and the National Prize for Literature in 1951.