Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacán, Mexico, on April 6, 1940, to a Greek father and Mexican mother; he was the youngest of five brothers. As a child, Aridjis would often walk up a hillside near his home to watch the migrating monarch butterflies. As he grew older logging thinned the forest. This and other events in his life caused him to co-found the Grupo de los Cien, the Group of 100, an association of one hundred artists and intellectuals that became heavily involved in trying to draw attention to and solve environmental problems in Mexico.

Aridjis has published 38 books of poetry and prose, many of them translated into a dozen languages. His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964; the Diana-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla.1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Aridjis has taught at Indiana University, New York University and Columbia, and held the Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. The Orion Society presented him with its John Hay Award for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature. He received the Prix Roger Caillois in France for his poetry and prose and the Smederevo Golden Key Prize for his poetry. In 2005 the state of Michoacan awarded him the first Erendira State Prize for the Arts. Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis is a wide-ranging bilingual anthology of his poetry.

He has been an editorial page columnist at the Mexican newspaper Reforma since 1994, writing about environmental, political and literary topics.

Homero Aridjis has served as Mexico's ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland. For six years he was President of International PEN, the worldwide association of writers.From April 2007 until the abolition of the post in January 2009 he was Mexico's ambassador to UNESCO. Culturebase.net | The international artist database | Homero Aridjis at www.culturebase.net He and his wife have two daughters, Eva Aridjis a filmmaker in New York and writer Chloe Aridjis in Berlin.

Aridjis is increasingly renowned as Latin America's leading environmental activist and the founder and president of the environmental International Group of 100 .

He received the Global 500 Award from the United Nations Environment Program on behalf of the Group of 100, the Jose Maria Morelos Medal in Michoacan, the Natural Resources Defense Council Force for Nature Award, and (with his wife Betty Ferber) the Green Cross Millennium Award for International Environmental Leadership given by Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green.

Works:

English:

• Eyes to see otherwise / Ojos, de otro mirar / Homero Aridjis; Selected and Edited by Betty Ferber and George McWhirter., (Carcanet,2001)(New Directions,2002)
• 1492: the life and times of Juan Cabezón of Castile / Homero Aridjis., 1991
• The Lord of the last days : visions of the year 1000 / Homero Aridjis; tr. Betty Ferber., 1995
• Persephone / Homero Aridjis., 1986
• Exaltation of light / Homero Aridjis; tr. Eliot Weinberger., 1981
• Blue spaces; selected poems of Homero Aridjis / Homero Aridjis., 1974
• Approaching the end of the millennium : lecture / Homero Aridjis., 1995
• Solar Poems / Homero Aridjis., tr. George McWhirter, City Lights Publishers, 2010. ISBN 978-0872865044.

Spanish:

Secondary Literature:

• Latin American novels of the Conquest : reinventing the New World / Kimberle S López., 2002
• / Thomas Stauder., 2005
• Mexico in the 21st century : selected essays / Alina Camacho Rivero de Gingerich., 2003