Salvador Novo López (Mexico City, July 30, 1904 - January 13, 1974) was a Mexican poet, presenter, writer and intellectual. Novo was one of the most popular and controversial people of his time.
Novo was from the capital. In 1927, with Xavier Villaurrutia, he founded the journal Ulises and a year later Contemporáneos. This latest magazine gave the name of a new flow of Mexican poets, among which Novo and Villaurrutia also included Jaime Torres Bodet, José Gorostiza, Carlos Pellicer and Jorge Cuesta.
Novo was known as a flamboyant personality, striking all the usual conventions, especially conservatism and Mexican machismo. Novo was one of the first public gay celebrities in Mexico. He painted his hair orange at late age and wore careful clothes and jewelry. Novo was seen as the Mexican Oscar Wilde, because of his freaky comments. After, for example, at a party a fighting party broke out between military and homosexual intellectuals, Novo noted that "it comes when intellectuals try to penetrate military circles."
Nevertheless, Novo did not live up to the establishment, he was elected in the Mexican Language Academy, won the National Literature Prize in 1967 and received his own television program about Mexico City's history, and from the homosexual movement he was accused of being together working with government and media who played such a bad role in the suppression of social movements.
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