Argentine poet Juan Gelman has won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's top literary award, Spanish Culture Minister Cesar Antonio Molina announced Thursday.

Gelman, 77, is considered one of Argentina's leading contemporary poets and has a painful background as a political activist.

During the 1976-83 Dirty War under Argentina's military regime, his son and daughter-in-law vanished at a time when thousands of dissidents became "the Disappeared."

He left Argentina for exile in Europe to escape the military dictatorship.

In 2001, Gelman tracked down a granddaughter who was born in captivity and adopted by a Uruguayan military family.

His more than 20 books of poetry include The game we're playing (El Juego en que Andamos) and Under someone else's rain.

Gelman's writing touches on Jewish heritage, his family history and the tango as well as social and political themes.

Now living in Mexico, Gelman has also won the Juan Rulfo Award, another significant literary award for Spanish writers.

The Cervantes prize is worth the equivalent of about $132,000 and will be presented to Gelman next April by King Juan Carlos in Alcala de Henares, the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote.

With files from the Associated Press