Poet and philosopher Ramón Xirau Subías died Wednesday at age 93 in Mexico City, Mexico’s National College reported on its webpage. Xirau Subías was born in Spain but had lived in Mexico since 1939. He was a member of the National College and a high-profile researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Xirau Subías’s life work includes over 40 books, encompassing texts authored by him and translations from English, French and German, as well as collaborations with other authors. “Vivid Natures,” “Between Knowledge and Poetry” and “Places in Time” are some of the works published in his lifetime.
Xirau Subías wrote poems, essays and philosophical texts and received several awards for his writing. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Letres in 1964 and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite in 1965. He was also given the Palmas Académicas award in 1975, and in 1990 the French government named him a member of the Légion d’Honneur.
The National College paid homage to Xirau Subías’s memory with a quote published on its web page: “There’s realism in the Kantian idea that man is neither good nor evil, even when we’ve seen the evil in his individual origins.”
