That we Cubans feel the pride of having José Martí as a compatriot is natural. The greatest of Cubans leaves no doubt as to his uniqueness as a political visionary in whom the dedication to independence and exceptional literary conditions were combined.

But Martí is today a universal figure, a paradigm where to guide the course and a writer object of intense study because of the way in which he succeeded in his journey through the most elegant paths of the language.

Two leading figures of the Spanish language, the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío and the Chilean Gabriela Mistral , unambiguously expressed their admiration for him, whose presence beats in their work.

Of Darío (1867-1916), it is worth saying that he personally met José Martí in New York, in 1893. The Cuban invited him to attend Hardman Hall, where he would speak to the emigrants, and it is said that when Darío arrived and was introduced , Martí embraced him while exclaiming: "Son!"

After the meeting, Darío accompanied him to Carmen Mantilla's house, to have a cup of chocolate. The two conversed in the quiet privacy of Carmen's home; Much more than an occasional encounter, it was for Darío the opportunity to dialogue with a man whose eloquence emanated from the heart.

The spell of Marti's verb subjugated the Nicaraguan bard, who had no qualms about recognizing this noble influence. This, despite the fact that Darío was by no means an "unknown" : he had already published the most famous of his books, Azul; His name ran through Latin America and he was consul in Colombia.

For Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), Martí is a recurring presence. She, who above all is a teacher, accepts the intellectual teaching of the Cuban. Gabriela's references to Martí are abundant and she is the author of one of the most lucid essays written on Cuban poetry.

From the first visit, in July 1922, he expressed his gratitude for the welcome in these terms: "In Martí, Cuba had anticipated me, as in the sea wind the scents of a land still distant are anticipated."

In 1934, the Ministry of Education of Cuba published the reflective analysis entitled La lengua de Martí, by Gabriela Mistral, an anthological piece of the bibliography on the hero of Dos Ríos. Reading the text attests to the care and love placed by the author in approaching the work of the Apostle, who, as she explains, "kept to Spain the true loyalty that we owe to her, that of the language."

For Gabriela, «Martí saw and lived the transcendent mixed with the familiar. He lets out an allegory that flashes, and continues with a phrase of a good woman when not a child; he makes a high-flying Ciceronian clause and neutralizes his eloquence with an everyday saying.

Later he points out:

Next to the extraordinary syntax of Martí is, then, like the other pillar of his masterfulness, his metaphor. He has it unthinkable and not extravagant; it has it original and not bizarre; He has it virgin and in such abundance that it is not understood what meadow of them is provided at each moment, without recidivism ever making him accept a single, ordinary groping.

The well-known phrase of the man who thinks in images suits Martí like none of us.

In another conference that became famous, the one he gave on October 30, 1938, he released his essay Los versos sincillos de José Martí. Again he delights with the analysis of a theme of capital importance in the Cuban's work.

Martí, a complete literary creature, loved his classics and he loved the poetry of the people, because humanism did not displease him with the popular, nor did the elementary invalidate him for the classic. So he had to write the Simple Verses , and although in them he did not reach the clod of rurality, there he points his hand up to us at the populist direction, so scorned at that time.

It is illustrative that Gabriela Mistral was one of the foreign personalities invited to the celebrations in Havana for the centenary of the birth of Martí, in 1953.

Let us remember that in 1945 she had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and she was not only the first Latin American to receive it, but the first of the Latin American writers to whom it was awarded. With her presence, she duly honored such a special commemoration for the Cuban people.

Then he declared: «I owe a lot to Martí. He is the most conspicuous Spanish-American writer in my work.