Pedro MirPedro Mir (1913–2000) is recognized as the Dominican Republic's foremost literary figure of the twentieth century. Since publishing his first poems in 1937, he sought through literature to place the Caribbean experience in global historical perspectie. He also produced work in the fields of history, fiction, and art criticism and theory. In 1993 he received the National Prize for Literature, the highest honor a literary artist can receive in the Dominican Republic. On the occasion of Mir's death, the president of the Dominican Republic declared three days of national mourning and celebrated the poet's memory and his work: "[Don Pedro] will always be with us because his thinking was transcendent, and he truly fathomed the national Dominican soul." Read More Read Less