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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Argentine Jewish poet Juan Gelman, who was exiled for his activism against the country’s military governments, has died.<\/p>\n
Gelman, the author of more than 40 books, died Tuesday in Mexico City.<\/p>\n
He was born to a Jewish family of Ukrainian immigrants who moved to the Buenos Aires Jewish neighborhood of Villa Crespo. Gelman, also a journalist, was exiled to Europe in the 1976 military coup and remained there for two decades, living in various countries before moving to Mexico.<\/p>\n
In 2007, he received the Cervantes Prize from the government of Spain, the highest award for Spanish letters. Often considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, Gelman also won numerous other awards for his works.<\/p>\n
During his absence from Argentina, the ruling military junta, in power from 1976 to 1983, sentenced Gelman to death. His son and daughter-in-law disappeared during the military dictatorship and were murdered. After a years-long search, Gelman was able to locate in Uruguay his granddaughter, Macarena, who was born during the captivity of her mother and given by the Uruguayan military to a local couple.<\/p>\n
In the past decade, he wrote opinion columns in Mexico for the leftist newspaper Pagina 12, usually against the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n