Justo Sierra Biography | Poet

Justo Sierra Méndez (Campeche, Republic of Yucatán, January 26, 1848 - Madrid, Spain, September 13, 1912), was a prominent Mexican writer, journalist, poet and political figure of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was the son of Mexican novelist Justo Sierra O'Reilly, who is credited with inspiring his son with the spirit of literature. Sierra moved to Mexico City at the age of 13 in 1861, the year of his father's death, and also, coincidentally, the year of the French intervention in Mexico. Together with his fellow young students, Sierra responded with patriotic fervor to the invasion of his country, and became a lifelong militant liberal. His most enduring works are sociopolitical histories (at times verging on memoirs) of the era of Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz, particularly his political biography of Juárez and his Evolución política del pueblo mexicano, which Antonio Caso considered the definitive statement of the age of the Reform in Mexico. He was elected a member of the Mexican Academy of Language in 1887, and served as the Academy's sixth director from 1910 until his death in 1912.