Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was Chilean writer, diplomat and politician and one of the most influential and widely read poets of the 20th-century. He wrote in a variety of styles and his body of work includes surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Neruda was born Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto to José del Carmen Reyes Morales, a railway employee, and Rosa Neftalí Basoalto Opazo, a schoolteacher. His mother passed away soon after and his father remarried, moving the family to Temuco in the backwoods of southern Chile. This is where Neruda grew up. He was a precocious boy who began to write poetry at age 10. His father never cared for his poems and discouraged his literary inclinations. Probably for this reason, the poet chose to publish his works under the pseudonym Pablo Neruda, which he was legally to adopt in 1946. Neruda entered the Temuco Boys’ School in 1910 and finished his secondary schooling there in 1920. He read voraciously and was encouraged and supported by the principal of the local school, Gabriela Mistral, a gifted poet who would herself, later, become a Nobel laureate.

By the time Neruda finished high school, he had published in local newspapers and Santiago magazines, and had won several literary competitions. In 1921, he left southern Chile for Santiago to attend school, with the intention of becoming a French teacher. His first book of poems, Crepusculario (Twilight) was published in 1923. The next year , he published his second book, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), inspired by an unhappy love affair. It became an instant success and is still one of Neruda’s most popular books.

At age 20, with two books published, Neruda had already become one of the best-known Chilean poets. He abandoned his French studies and began to devote himself entirely to poetry. Three more books appeared in quick succession. Yet Neruda’s future looked uncertain without a steady job. He managed to get himself appointed honorary consul to Rangoon (now Yangon) in Burma. For the next five years, he represented his country in Asia. It was during these years in Asia that he wrote Residencia en la tierra, 1925–1931 (1933; Residence on Earth). In 1930 Neruda was named consul in Batavia (modern Jakarta). There he fell in love with a Dutch woman, Maria Antonieta Hagenaar, and married her. In 1932 Neruda returned to Chile, but he still could not earn a living from poetry. He was appointed Chilean consul in Buenos Aires in 1933. The next year, Neruda took up an appointment as consul in Barcelona and soon he was transferred to the consulate in Madrid. Meanwhile, his marriage was foundering. In 1936, he divorced his wife and met a young Argentine woman named Delia del Carril who would be his second wife until their divorce in the early 1950s.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out and Neruda traveled in and out of Spain to gather money and mobilize support for the Republicans. Neruda's outspoken sympathy for the loyalist cause during the war led to his recall from Madrid in 1937. He then moved to Paris and helped settle Spanish republican refugees in Chile.

Neruda returned to Chile in 1938 where he renewed his political activity and wrote prolifically. Named Chilean Consul to Mexico in 1939, Neruda left Chile again for four years. Upon returning to Chile in 1943, he was elected to the Senate and joined the Communist Party. When the Chilean government moved to the right, they declared communism illegal and expelled Neruda from the Senate. He went into hiding and left Chile in February 1948. While in exile visited the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and Mexico. During those years he wrote and published Canto general (1950). In Mexico, he met Matilde Urrutia, a Chilean woman whom he had first encountered in 1946. Their marriage would last until the end of his life, and she would inspire some of the most passionate Spanish love poems of the 20th century.

In 1952 the government withdrew the order to arrest leftist writers and political figures, and Neruda returned to Chile. For the next twenty-one years, he continued a career that integrated private and public concerns and became known as the people's poet.

Diagnosed with cancer while serving a two-year term as ambassador to France, Neruda resigned his position, ending his diplomatic career. On September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the defeat of Chile's democratic regime, the man widely regarded as the greatest Latin American poet since Darío died in Santiago, Chile.

Music credits: Resolutions by Scott Buckley

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