We rely mainly on his obit in The Guardian. The article mentions his family:
...Pacheco's family background was a complex mixture perhaps typical of Mexican identity in the 20th century. On his mother's side, the Berny family were rich business people from the eastern port of Veracruz. His father was brought up during the years of the Mexican revolution after 1910, and rose to become a general in the revolutionary army. Cashiered when he refused to carry out orders to shoot another general, he turned to the law and practised for many years in Mexico City. He intended his son to continue with the family practice....
However...[the son's] interests were already far more inclined towards literature, and he took up studies in philosophy and letters at the huge UNAM university in the Mexican capital. It was there that he met his lifelong friends, the writers Carlos Monsiváis, Juan José Arreola and Sergio Pitol, and the four of them soon became involved in the literary and cultural life of Mexico.
As a student, Pacheco tried his hand at writing plays, then published his first volume of poetry, Los Elementos de la Noche (The Elements of Night, 1963), at the age of 24. In the same year he published a book of short stories, El Viento Distante (The Distant Wind). By 1966, with El Reposo del Fuego (The Fire's Rest), he had already acquired his mature voice, a spare, probing examination of the world around him and the possibilities of changing it.
....
[Part of Pacheco's vision is that]....: "Yesterday cannot live again … All that is truly ours is the day that is beginning." He devoted much of his time to writing for newspapers, engaging as fully as possible in the daily cultural life of his country. He also taught Mexican and Latin American literature at universities in Mexico, the UK (Essex) and Canada, and from 1985 until 2005 at the University of Maryland in the US. He was also a distinguished translator from English, in particular of Samuel Beckett and TS Eliot.
The Mexican poet and novelist died a few days after a fall. Cristina, a writer and his wife, and their two daughters survived him.
And here's what the big deal is about. From his book of verse, City of Memory and Other Poems , (a 1997 translation of the 1986 original,) we quote the words of Jose Emilio Pacheco. Cynthia Steele and David Lauer translated "Miro la tierra" as "I watch the earth" and here is part of that poem:
....
The cat that wants only food and slumber
kept its eyes open, its ear to the ground.
The ageless cockroaches stepped up
their frenzied panic. Ants filled all the houses.
The rats were more active than ever.
Countless fish
let themselves die in their aquariums....
Nothing lasts forever, we knew it
but never believed it...
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