Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an writer and politician
Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation. Neruda's pen name was derived from
CzechCzechs are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
writer and poet
Jan NerudaJan Nepomuk Neruda was a Czech journalist, writer and poet, one of the most prominent representatives of Czech Realism and a member of "the May school"....
; Pablo is thought to be from
Paul VerlainePaul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.
Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection
Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair,
surrealistSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political
activismActivism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social change, political change, economic justice, or environmental wellbeing...
.
ColombianColombian people are from a multiethnic nation in South American called Colombia. Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and overwhelmingly speakers of Spanish, and that a majority of them are the result of the a mixture of Europeans, Africans, Amerindians.-Demography:With approximately 43.6...
novelist
Gabriel García MárquezGabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, affectionately known as "Gabo" throughout Latin America, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel...
once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."
On July 15, 1945, at Pacaembu Stadium in
São PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and the world's 7th largest metropolitan area. The city is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous Brazilian state. It is also the richest city in Brazil. The name of the city honors Saint Paul. São Paulo exerts strong regional influence in...
,
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
, he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader
Luís Carlos PrestesLuís Carlos Prestes was a leader of the 1920s tenente rebellion and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil....
. When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,
Salvador AllendeSalvador Isabelino Allende Gossens was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas....
invited him to read at the
Estadio NacionalThe Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos is the national stadium of Chile. It is located in Ñuñoa . It is the largest stadium in Chile with an official capacity of 65,127, and is part of a 62 ha sporting complex which also features tennis courts, swimming pools, and a modern...
before 70,000 people.
During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President
González VidelaGabriel González Videla was a Chilean politician. He was a deputy and senator in the Chilean Congress and was President of Chile from 1946 to 1952...
outlawed communism in Chile, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of
ValparaísoValparaíso is a city in central Chile and one of that country's most important seaports and an increasingly vital cultural center in the hemisphere's Pacific Southwest. The city is the capital of the Region of Valparaíso...
. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near
Maihue LakeThe Maihue Lake is a lake located east of Ranco Lake in the Andean mountains of southern Chile . The lake is of glacial origin and it is enclosed by mountain ranges of the Andes, by all sides, and drains west to Ranco Lake....
into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to
socialistSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
President
Salvador AllendeSalvador Isabelino Allende Gossens was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas....
.
Neruda was hospitalized with cancer at the time of the Chilean coup d'état led by
Augusto PinochetAugusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army general and later head of state as president. He was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until the return of...
. Three days after being hospitalized, Neruda died of heart failure. Already a legend in life, Neruda's death reverberated around the world. Pinochet had denied permission to transform Neruda's funeral into a public event. However, thousands of grieving Chileans disobeyed the curfew and crowded the streets. Neruda's funeral became the first public protest against the Chilean military dictatorship.
Early years
Ricardo Eliezer Neftalí Reyes y Basoalto was born in
ParralThe municipality of Parral was founded in 1795 by the Viceroy of Peru, Ambrosio O'Higgins. It was originally named "Villa Reina Luisa del Parral", in honor of the wife of the King of Spain, Carlos IV.-Description and Geography:...
, a city in
Linares ProvinceLinares is a Chilean province located in the southeastern part of Maule Region . The provincial capital and most populous center is the city of Linares.- Geography and Demography :...
in the
Maule RegionThe VII Maule Region is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions. Its capital is Talca. The region takes its name from the Maule River, which running westward from the Andes, bisects the region and spans a basin of about 20,600 km²...
, some 350 km south of
SantiagoSantiago , is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the centre of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of 520 m AMSL...
. His father, José del Carmen Reyes Morales, was a railway employee; his mother, Rosa Basoalto, was a school teacher who died two months after he was born. Neruda and his father soon moved to
TemucoTemuco is the capital of the Araucanía Region, Chile. The name comes from the Mapudungun language, meaning "temu water"; "temu" is a tree used by Mapuches for medicinal purposes. The city is located 670 km south of Santiago...
, where his father married Trinidad Candia Marverde, a woman with whom he had had a child nine years earlier, a boy named Rodolfo. Neruda also grew up with his half-sister Laura, one of his father's children by another woman.
The young Neruda was christened "Neftalí", his late mother's middle name. His father was opposed to Neruda's interest in writing and literature, but Neruda received encouragement from others, including future Nobel Prize winner
Gabriela MistralGabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945...
, who headed the local girls' school. His first published work was an essay he wrote for the local daily newspaper,
La Mañana, at the age of thirteen:
Entusiasmo y perseverancia ("Enthusiasm and Perseverance"). By 1920, when he adopted the pseudonym of Pablo Neruda, he was a published author of poetry, prose, and journalism.
Veinte poemas
In the following year (1921), he moved to
SantiagoSantiago , is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the centre of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of 520 m AMSL...
to study
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
at the Universidad de Chile with the intention of becoming a teacher, but soon Neruda was devoting himself full time to poetry. In 1923 his first volume of verse,
Crepusculario ("Book of Twilights"), was published, followed the next year by
Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada ("Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song"), a collection of love poems that was controversial for its eroticism, especially considering its author's young age. Both works were critically acclaimed and were translated into many languages. Over the decades,
Veinte poemas would sell millions of copies and become Neruda's best-known work.
Neruda's reputation was growing both inside and outside of
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, but he was plagued by poverty. In 1927, out of desperation, he took an honorary consulship in
RangoonYangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Division. Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...
, then a part of colonial
BurmaBurma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia or Indochina. The country is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the...
and a place of which he had never heard before. Later, he worked stints in
ColomboColombo is the largest city and commercial capital of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the capital city of Sri Lanka. Colombo is a busy and vibrant city with a mixture of modern life and colonial buildings and ruins and a city...
(Ceylon),
BataviaJakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. It also has a greater population than any other city in Southeast Asia. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa , Jayakarta , Batavia , and Djakarta . Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,489,910...
(Java), and
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
. In Java he met and married his first wife, a tall Dutch bank employee named Maryka Antonieta Hagenaar Vogelzang. While on diplomatic service, Neruda read large amounts of poetry and experimented with many different poetic forms. He wrote the first two volumes of
Residencia En La Tierra, which included many
surrealisticSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
poems.
Spanish Civil War
After returning to Chile, Neruda was given diplomatic posts in
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
and then
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
. He later replaced Gabriela Mistral as consul in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
, where he became the center of a lively literary circle, befriending such writers as
Rafael AlbertiRafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....
,
Federico García LorcaFederico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War by persons likely affiliated with the Nationalist cause...
, and the
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico...
vian poet
César VallejoCésar Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet. Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language...
. A daughter, Malva Marina Trinidad, was born in Madrid in 1934; she was to be plagued with health problems, especially
hydrocephalusHydrocephalus , also known as "water on the brain", is a medical condition. People with hydrocephalus have an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain. This may cause increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and progressive enlargement of...
, for the whole of her short life. During this period, Neruda became slowly estranged from his wife and took up with Delia del Carril, an
ArgentineArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
woman who was twenty years his senior and who would eventually become his second wife. He divorced from his Dutch wife in 1936, who moved to the Netherlands with his only child; this child died in 1943.
As Spain became engulfed in civil war, Neruda became intensely politicized for the first time. His experiences of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath moved him away from distinctive, privately focused labor in the direction of collective obligation and better cohesion. Neruda became an ardent communist, and remained so for the rest of his life. The radical leftist politics of his literary friends, as well as that of del Carril, were contributing factors, but the most important catalyst was the execution of García Lorca by forces loyal to
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, commonly known as Francisco Franco , or simply Franco, was a military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in 1975...
. By means of his speeches and writings, Neruda threw his support behind the Republican side, publishing a collection of poetry called
España en el corazón ("Spain in My Heart"). Neruda’s wife and child moved to
Monte CarloMonte Carlo is one of Monaco's administrative areas, sometimes erroneously believed to be a town or the country's capital, just as Monaco-Ville...
; he was never to see either of them again. After leaving his wife, he took up full time with del Carril in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Following the election in 1938 of President
Pedro Aguirre CerdaPedro Abelino Aguirre Cerda was a Chilean political figure. A member of the Radical Party, he was chosen as the Popular Front's candidate for the 1938 presidential election, and was triumphally elected. He governed Chile until his death in 1941...
, whom Neruda supported, he was appointed special consul for Spanish emigration in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. There Neruda was given responsibility for what he called "the noblest mission I have ever undertaken": shipping 2,000 Spanish refugees, who had been housed by the French in
squalid campsThere have been internment camps and concentration camps in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the...
, to Chile on an old boat called the
WinnipegThe Winnipeg is the name of a ship which arrived at Valparaíso, Chile, on 3 September, 1939, with 2,200 Spanish immigrants fleeing Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War...
. Neruda is sometimes charged with only selecting Communists for emigration while excluding others who had fought on the side of the Republic ; others deny these accusations, pointing out that Neruda chose only a few hundred of the refugees personally; the rest were selected by the Service for the Evacuation of Spanish Refugees, set up by
Juan NegrínJuan Negrín y López was a Spanish politician and physician.Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, he became a university professor of physiology....
, president of the Spanish Republican government-in-exile.
Mexico
Neruda's next diplomatic post was as Consul General in
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
, where he spent the years 1940 to 1943. While in Mexico, he divorced Hagenaar, married del Carril, and learned that his daughter had died, age eight, in Nazi-occupied
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
from various health problems. He also became a friend of the Stalinist assassin
Vittorio VidaliVittorio Vidali , also known as Vittorio Vidale, Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras, "Comandante Carlos") was an Italian-born Stalinist assasin.- Early life :...
.
After the failed 1940 assassination attempt against
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Leyba Davidov Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin...
, Neruda arranged a Chilean visa for the Mexican painter
David Alfaro SiqueirosJosé David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a Stalinist who participated in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate...
who was accused of having been one of the conspirators. Neruda later said he did it at the request of Mexican President
Manuel Ávila CamachoManuel Ávila Camacho served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946.Manuel Ávila was born in the city of Teziutlán, a small town in Puebla, to middle-class parents, Manuel Ávila Castillo and Eufrosina Camacho Bello. He had several siblings, among them sister María Jovita Ávila Camacho and...
. This enabled Siqueiros, then jailed, to leave Mexico for Chile, where he stayed at Neruda's private residence. In exchange for Neruda's assistance, Siqueiros spent over a year painting a mural in a school in
ChillánChillán is a city in the Bío-Bío Region of Chile located about 400 km south of the capital, Santiago, near the geographical center of the country. It is the capital of Ñuble Province and, with a population of approximately 170.000 people , the most populated urban center of this province...
. Neruda's relationship with Siqueiros attracted criticism and Neruda dismissed the allegations that his intent had been to help an assassin as "sensationalist politico-literary harassment". In Mexico, Pablo Neruda met the famous Mexican writer
Octavio PazOctavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Later life:...
where he nearly came to blows in 1942.
Return to Chile
In 1943, following his return to Chile, Neruda made a tour of
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico...
, where he visited
Machu PicchuMachu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site located above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows...
. The austere beauty of the
IncaThe Inca civilization began as a tribe in the Cuzco area, where the legendary first Sapa Inca, Manco Capac founded the Kingdom of Cuzco around 1200. Under the leadership of the descendants of Manco Capac, the Inca state grew to absorb other Andean communities. In 1442, the Incas began a...
citadel later inspired
Alturas de Macchu Picchu, a book-length poem in twelve parts which he completed in 1945 and which marked a growing awareness and interest in the ancient civilizations of the Americas: themes he was to explore further in
Canto GeneralCanto General is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by Talleres Gráficos de la Nación. Neruda began to compose it in 1938....
. In this work, Neruda celebrated the achievement of Machu Picchu, but also condemned the slavery which had made it possible. In the Canto XII, he called upon the dead of many centuries to be born again and to speak through him.
Martin EspadaMartín Espada is a poet and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches Latino poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.- Life and career :Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York...
, poet and professor of creative writing at the
University of MassachusettsThe University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts....
, has hailed the work as a masterpiece, declaring that "there is no greater political poem".
Neruda and Stalinism
Bolstered by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Neruda, like many left-leaning intellectuals of his generation, came to admire the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
of
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
, partly for the role it played in defeating
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
(poems
Canto a Stalingrado (1942) and
Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado (1943)). In 1953 Neruda was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. On Stalin's death that same year, Neruda wrote an ode to him, as he also (during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) wrote praise of
Fulgencio BatistaFulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban general, President, and U.S.-backed dictator. He served as the leader of Cuba from 1933-1944, and 1952-1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution.-Early life:...
(
Saludo a Batista, i.e
Salute to Batista) and later to
Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
.
His fervent Stalinism eventually drove a wedge between Neruda and longtime friend
Octavio PazOctavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Later life:...
who commented that "
Neruda became more and more Stalinist, while I became less and less enchanted with Stalin". Their differences came to a head after the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact when they almost came to blows in an argument over Stalin. Although Paz still considered Neruda "the greatest poet of his generation", in an essay on
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet and Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his writings he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system — particularly The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, his two...
he wrote that when he
thinks of … Neruda and other famous Stalinist writers I feel the gooseflesh that I get from reading certain passages of Dante’s Inferno. No doubt they began in good faith, but insensibly, commitment by commitment, they saw themselves becoming entangled in a mesh of lies, falsehoods, deceits and perjuries, until they lost their souls.
Neruda called Lenin the "great genius of this century". Another speech (June 5, 1946) is a tribute to the late Soviet leader
Mikhail KalininMikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the titular head of state of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. Though only four years older than Joseph Stalin, Kalinin was celebrated as Dedushka by the Young Pioneers...
, who for Neruda was "man of noble life", "the great constructor of the future", "a comrade of arms of Lenin and Stalin".
http://libros.libertaddigital.com/articulo.php/1276229541
Neruda later came to rue his support of the Soviet leader; after
Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's famous Secret Speech at the Soviet 20th Party Congress in 1956, which denounced the "
cult of personalityA cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist governments....
" that surrounded Stalin and accused him of committing crimes during the Great Purges, Neruda wrote in his memoirs "I had contributed to my share to the personality cult," explaining that "in those days, Stalin seemed to us the conqueror who had crushed Hitler's armies". Of a subsequent visit to
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
in 1957, Neruda would later write: "What has estranged me from the Chinese revolutionary process has not been
Mao Tse-tungMao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary, political theorist and Communist leader. He led the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976...
but Mao Tse-tungism", which he dubbed Mao Tse-Stalinism: "the repetition of a cult of a Socialist deity". However, despite his disillusionment with Stalin, Neruda never lost his essential faith in communist theory and remained loyal to "the Party". Anxious not to give ammunition to his ideological enemies, he would later refuse publicly to condemn the Soviet repression of
dissidentA dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
writers like
Boris PasternakBoris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet and writer. In the West he is best known for his epic novel Doctor Zhivago, a tragedy whose events span the last period of Tsarist Russia and the early days of the Soviet Union. It was first translated and published in Italy in 1957...
and
Joseph BrodskyIosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Soviet-Russian-American poet, essayist, and Nobel Laureate in Literature. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1991.-Early years:...
: an attitude with which even some of his staunchest admirers disagreed.
Senator
On March 4, 1945 Neruda was elected a Communist party
senatorThe Senate of the Republic of Chile is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile.-Composition:...
for the northern provinces of
AntofagastaThe II Antofagasta Region is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions. It comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla, It is bordered to the north by Tarapacá and by Atacama to the south and is the second largest region of Chile.The capital of the region is the port...
and
TarapacáThe I Tarapacá Region is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions. It borders the Chilean Arica-Parinacota Region to the north, Bolivia's Oruro Department on the east, the Antofagasta Region on the south and the Pacific Ocean on the west...
in the arid and inhospitable
Atacama DesertThe Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world...
. He officially joined the
Communist Party of ChileThe Communist Party of Chile is a Chilean political party that advocates communism. It was founded in 1922, as the continuation of the Socialist Workers Party.- History :...
four months later.
In 1946, Radical Party presidential candidate
Gabriel González VidelaGabriel González Videla was a Chilean politician. He was a deputy and senator in the Chilean Congress and was President of Chile from 1946 to 1952...
asked Neruda to act as his campaign manager. González Videla was supported by a coalition of left-wing parties and Neruda fervently campaigned on his behalf. Once in office, however, González Videla turned against the Communist Party. The breaking point for Senator Neruda was the violent repression of a Communist-led miners' strike in
LotaLota is a city located in the center of the Republic of Chile on the Gulf of Arauco. The first Spanish settlement, Santa Maria de Guadalupe was founded by the governor Ángel de Peredo on October 12, 1662 but it did not survive long in the hostilities of the Arauco War. The modern city grew with...
in October 1947, where striking workers were herded into island military prisons and a concentration camp in the town of
PisaguaPisagua is a Chilean port on the Pacific Ocean, located in Huara comuna , in Iquique Region, northern Chile. In 2007, the new province of El Tamarugal was established and the comuna of Huara, previously within the province of Iquique, was incorporated to the newly created province.-Early...
. Neruda's criticism of González Videla culminated in a dramatic speech in the Chilean senate on 6 January, 1948 called
Yo acuso ("I accuse"), in the course of which he read out the names of the miners and their families who were imprisoned at the concentration camp.
Exile
A few weeks later, Neruda went into hiding and he and his wife were smuggled from house to house, hidden by supporters and admirers for the next thirteen months. While in hiding, Senator Neruda was removed from office and in September 1948 the Communist Party was banned altogether under the
Ley de Defensa Permanente de la Democracia (Law for the Permanent Defense of Democracy), called by critics the
Ley Maldita ("Accursed Law"), which eliminated over 26,000 people from the electoral registers, thus stripping them of their right to vote. Neruda moved later to
ValdiviaValdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia and Cau-Cau Rivers, approximately 15 km east of the coastal towns of Corral and...
in southern Chile. Neruda's life underground ended in March 1949 when he fled over the
Lilpela PassIpela or Lilpela is a mountain pass through the Andes along the border between Chile and Argentina. It is most notable for being the pass used by Pablo Neruda to flee from Chile in 1949. The pass is not outfitted as an international border crossing. During summer months Carabineros guards the...
on the Andes Mountains to
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
on horseback. He would dramatically recount his escape from Chile in his Nobel Prize lecture.
Once out of Chile, he spent the next three years in exile. In
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
a friend of Neruda, the future Nobel winner and novelist
Miguel Ángel AsturiasMiguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, and diplomat. Asturias helped establish Latin American literature's contribution to mainstream Western culture, and at the same time drew attention to the importance of indigenous cultures, especially those of his...
, was cultural attaché to the Guatemalan embassy. There was some slight resemblance between the two men, so Neruda went to Europe using Asturias's passport.
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. Commonly known simply as Picasso, he is one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art...
arranged his entrance into
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Neruda made a surprise appearance there to a stunned World Congress of Peace Forces, the Chilean government meanwhile denying that the poet could have escaped the country.
Neruda spent those three years traveling extensively throughout
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
as well as taking trips to
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
,
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
,
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
and the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. His trip to
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
in late 1949 was lengthened due to a serious bout of
phlebitisPhlebitis is an inflammation of a vein, usually in the legs.When phlebitis is associated with the formation of blood clots , usually in the deep veins of the legs, the condition is called thrombophlebitis. These clots can travel to the lungs, causing pulmonary embolisms which can be...
. A Chilean singer named
Matilde UrrutiaMatilde Urrutia was the third wife of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, from 1966 until his death in 1973. They met in Santiago in 1946. Urrutia was the inspiration behind Neruda's work 100 Love Sonnets which includes a beautiful dedication to her...
was hired to care for him and they began an affair that would, years later, culminate in marriage. During his exile, Urrutia would travel from country to country shadowing him and they would arrange meetings whenever they could. Matilde Urrutia was the muse for "Los versos del Capitán", which he later published anonymously in 1952.
While in Mexico, Neruda also published his lengthy epic poem
Canto GeneralCanto General is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by Talleres Gráficos de la Nación. Neruda began to compose it in 1938....
, a
WhitmanesqueWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
catalog of the history, geography, and flora and fauna of
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
, accompanied by Neruda's observations and experiences. Many of them dealt with his time underground in Chile, which is when he composed much of the poem. In fact, he had carried the manuscript with him on his escape on horseback. A month later, a different edition of five thousand copies was boldly published in Chile by the outlawed Communist Party based on a manuscript Neruda had left behind. In Mexico, he was granted honorary Mexican citizenship.
His 1952 stay in a villa owned by
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
historian
Edwin CerioEdwin Cerio was a prominent Italian writer, engineer, architect, historian, and botanist. He was born on the island of Capri to an English artist mother and a well-known local physician, Ignazio Cerio....
on the island of
CapriCapri is an Italian island off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of southern Italy...
was fictionalized in the popular film
Il PostinoIl Postino is a 1994 Italian language film directed by Michael Radford.The film was originally released in the U.S. as The Postman, a straight translation of the Italian title...
("The Postman", 1994).
Return to Chile
By 1952, the González-Videla government was on its last legs, weakened by corruption scandals. The Chilean Socialist Party was in the process of nominating
Salvador AllendeSalvador Isabelino Allende Gossens was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas....
as its candidate for the September 1952 presidential elections and was keen to have the presence of Neruda—by now Chile's most prominent left-wing literary figure—to support the campaign.
Neruda returned in August of that year and rejoined Delia del Carril, who had traveled ahead of him some months earlier, but the marriage was crumbling. Del Carril eventually learned of his torrid affair with Matilde Urrutia and left him in 1955, moving back to Europe. Now united with Urrutia, Neruda would spend the rest of his life in Chile, many foreign trips notwithstanding and a stint as Allende's ambassador to France from 1970 to 1973.
By this time, Neruda enjoyed worldwide fame as a poet, and his books were being translated into virtually all the major languages of the world. He was also vocal on political issues, vigorously denouncing the U.S. during the
Cuban missile crisisThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in October 1962, during the Cold War. In Russia, former Eastern Bloc, and communist countries , it is termed the "Caribbean Crisis" , while in Cuba it is called the "October Crisis"...
(later in the decade he would likewise repeatedly condemn the U.S. for the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
). But being one of the most prestigious and outspoken leftwing intellectuals alive also attracted opposition from ideological opponents. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-communist organization covertly established and funded by the U.S.
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
, adopted Neruda as one of its primary targets and launched a campaign to undermine his reputation, reviving the old claim he had been an accomplice in the attack on Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940. The campaign became more intense when it became known that Neruda was a candidate for the 1964 Nobel prize, which was eventually awarded to
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Existentialism, and his work continues to influence further...
.
In 1966, Neruda was invited to attend an
International PENInternational PEN, the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere...
conference in New York City. Officially, he was barred from entering the U.S. because he was a communist, but the conference organizer, playwright
Arthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include awards-winning plays such as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and...
, eventually prevailed upon the
JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
Administration to grant Neruda a visa. Neruda gave readings to packed halls, and even recorded some poems for the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head...
. Miller later opined that Neruda's adherence to his communist ideals of the 1930s was a result of his protracted exclusion from "bourgeois society". Due to the presence of many East Bloc writers, Mexican writer
Carlos FuentesCarlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. Fuentes has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...
later wrote that the PEN conference marked a "beginning of the end" of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
.
Upon Neruda's return to Chile, he stopped off in Peru, where he gave readings to enthusiastic crowds in Lima and
ArequipaArequipa is the capital of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 904,931 it is the second most populous city of the country. Arequipa lies in the Andes mountains, at an altitude of 2,380 meters above sea level; the snow-capped volcano El Misti overlooks the city...
and was received by President
Fernando Belaúnde TerryFernando Belaúnde Terry was President of Peru for two terms . Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after twelve years of military rule...
. However, the visit prompted an unpleasant backlash. The Peruvian government had come out against the government in
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
of
Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President of the Council of State of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008...
, and in July 1966 retaliation against Neruda came in the form of a letter signed by more than one hundred Cuban intellectuals who charged Neruda with colluding with the enemy, and called him an example of the "tepid, pro-Yankee revisionism" then prevalent in Latin America. The affair was particularly painful for Neruda because of his previous outspoken support for the Cuban revolution, and he never visited the island again, even after an invitation in 1968.
After the death of
Che GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che, or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution...
in
BoliviaBolivia, officially Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina to the south, and Chile and Peru to the west....
in 1967, Neruda wrote several articles regretting the loss of a "great hero". At the same time, he told his friend Aida Figueroa not to cry for Che, but for
Luis Emilio RecabarrenLuis Emilio Recabarren Serrano was a Chilean political figure. He was elected several times as deputy, and was the driving force behind the Worker's Movement in that country.- Early life :...
, the father of the Chilean communist movement, who preached a pacifist revolution over Che's violent ways.
Final years
In 1970, Neruda was nominated as a candidate for the Chilean presidency, but ended up giving his support to
Salvador AllendeSalvador Isabelino Allende Gossens was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist socialist to become president of a state in the Americas....
, who later won the election and was inaugurated in 1970 as the first democratically elected socialist head of state. Shortly thereafter, Allende appointed Neruda the Chilean ambassador to France (lasting from 1970-1972; his final diplomatic posting). Neruda returned to Chile two and half years later due to failing health.
In 1971, having sought the prize for years, Neruda was finally awarded the
Nobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
. This decision did not come easily, as some of the committee members had not forgotten Neruda's past praise of Stalinist dictatorship. But his Swedish translator,
Artur LundkvistArtur Lundkvist was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968....
, did his best to ensure the Chilean the prize.
As the
disturbances of 1973The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile and the Soviet-American Cold War. On 11 September 1973, the government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown by the military in a coup d’état....
unfolded, Neruda, then terminally ill with
prostate cancerProstate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause pain, difficulty in urinating, problems...
, was devastated by the mounting attacks on the Allende government. The military coup led by General
Augusto PinochetAugusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army general and later head of state as president. He was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until the return of...
on 11 September saw Neruda's hopes for a
marxistMarxism is the political philosophy and economic worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; three primary aspects of...
Chile destroyed. Shortly thereafter, during a search of the house and grounds at Isla Negra by Chilean armed forces at which he was present, Neruda famously remarked:
Neruda died of heart failure on the evening of September 23, 1973, at Santiago's Santa María Clinic. The funeral took place amidst a massive
policethumb|250px|Carabineros de Chile, patrolling a street in [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]]Carabineros de Chile are the uniformed Chilean national police force and gendarmery, created on April 27, 1927. Their mission is to maintain order and create public respect for the laws of the country...
presence, and mourners took advantage of the occasion to protest against the new regime, established just a couple of weeks before.
Matilde Urrutia subsequently compiled and edited for publication the memoirs that Neruda had been working on just days prior to his death including, possibly his final poem 'Right Comrade, It's the Hour of the Garden'. These and other activities brought her into conflict with Pinochet's government, which continually sought to curtail Neruda's influence on the Chilean collective consciousness. Urrutia's own memoir,
My Life with Pablo Neruda, was published posthumously in 1986.
Neruda owned three houses in Chile; today they are all open to the public as museums: La Chascona in Santiago, La Sebastiana in
ValparaísoValparaíso is a city in central Chile and one of that country's most important seaports and an increasingly vital cultural center in the hemisphere's Pacific Southwest. The city is the capital of the Region of Valparaíso...
, and
Casa de Isla NegraCasa de Isla Negra was one of Pablo Neruda's three houses in Chile. It is located at Isla Negra, El Quisco, San Antonio Province, Valparaíso Region about 85 km to the south of Valparaíso and 110 km to the west of Santiago. It was his favorite house and where he and his third wife, Matilde Urrutia...
in
Isla NegraEl Quisco is a Chilean city and commune in San Antonio Province, Valparaíso Region. Located in the country's central coast, it serves as a popular summer resort for the population of Santiago...
, where he and Matilde Urrutia are buried.
Personal life
Neruda was good friends with Venezuelan intellectuals and diplomats, such as
Arturo Uslar PietriArturo Uslar Pietri was one of the most prominent Venezuelan figures of the twentieth century. He was a writer and an intellectual, who made important contributions as an educator, journalist, diplomat, politician and government official.- Life and career :Born in Caracas, Uslar Pietri was raised...
,
Juan OropezaJuan Oropeza Riera was a Venezuelan diplomat, lawyer, educator, and writer. He was born in Carora in the state of Lara, and was the younger brother of pediatrics pioneer, Pastor Oropeza Riera....
and
Miguel Otero SilvaMiguel Otero Silva , was a Venezuelan writer, journalist, humorist and politician. Remaining a figure of great reference in Venezuelan literature, his literary and journalistic works were strictly related to the social and political history of Venezuela.-Life:Born in Barcelona, Anzoátegui State,...
.
Neruda always wrote in green ink because it was the color of Esperanza (hope).
Legacy
- A bust of Neruda stands on the south side of the Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is an international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. Its members are the thirty-five independent states of the Americas with two countries suspended...
building in Washington D.C.
- In 2009 the Chilean Google homepage displayed a logo commemorating his birthday on July 12. http://www.google.cl/logos/neruda09.gif
Music
- Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most popular Greek composers. He is particularly well known for lots of his songs and his scores in the films, Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico ....
set to music the famous "Canto General" (one of the most famous poems by Neruda) when he was exiled from his homeland by the dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974).
- Folk rock / progressive rock group Los Jaivas
Los Jaivas are a Chilean folk/rock/progressive rock group/band.-Members:*Ankatu Alquinta *Juanita Parra *Mario Mutis *Eduardo Parra *Claudio Parra...
, famous in Chile, used Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu as the text for their album of the same name. The band later made a full-length video of the piece for Chilean television. Taped at Macchu Picchu itself, the programme was hosted by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
.
- Neruda Songs, a classical and operatic cycle based on five of Neruda's love poems, received the $200,000 University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award for Musical Composition. The composer, Peter Lieberson
Peter Lieberson is an American composer. His mother Brigitta was a ballerina and choreographer, also professionally known as Vera Zorina. His father, Goddard Lieberson, was president of Columbia Records....
, dedicated the music to his wife, mezzo-sopranoA mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
Lorraine Hunt LiebersonLorraine Hunt Lieberson was a renowned American soprano then mezzo-soprano.-Her life:Her parents were both involved with opera in the San Francisco Bay Area; her mother, Marcia, was a contralto and music teacher and her father, Randolph, taught music in high school and college...
, who performed the music exemplifying what Neruda referred to as "the arc of love" at its world premiere.
- Neruda's verse is quoted on the back of Jackson Browne's
Clyde Jackson Browne is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. His political interest and personal angst have been central to his career, resulting in popular songs such as "Somebody's Baby", "These Days", "The Pretender" and "Running On Empty"...
album The PretenderThe Pretender is the fourth album by American singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, released in 1976 . It peaked at #5 on Billboard's album chart....
- Neruda is one of the people toasted to in the song "La Vie Boheme" from the Tony-winning rock opera Rent
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under...
.
- The South African musician Johnny Clegg drew heavily on Neruda in his early work with the band Juluka
Juluka was a South African music band formed in 1969 by Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu. Juluka means "sweat", and was the name of a bull owned by Mchunu.- Biography :...
.
- Canadian rock group Red Rider named their 1983 LP/CD release, Neruda.
- Pop singer Madonna has read his poem "If You Forget Me" rather beautifully on a version of her song "Frozen", calling it "Frozen (Poetry Edit)".
Literature
- An edition of Neruda's On the Blue Shore of Silence was printed in honour of the poet's 100th birthday in 2004. The book featured translations of Neruda's original poems by Scottish poet Alastair Reid
Alastair Reid is a poet and a scholar of South American literature from Galloway in Scotland. He is known for his lighthearted style of poems and for his translations of South American poets Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda. Although he is famous for translations, his own poems are gaining note...
and original paintings from artist Mary Heebner'sMary Heebner Mary Heebner works in several mediums including painting, photography and handmade artists books. Her work is exhibited internationally, and is in collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Chicago...
series Isla Negra. A companion collection, Intimacies: Poems of Love, with paintings by Mary Heebner from Muse was published in 2008.
- Neruda is referred to frequently as "The Poet" in the novel The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits is the debut novel by Isabel Allende. Initially, the novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers, but became an instant best seller when published in Barcelona in 1982. The novel was critically acclaimed around the world, and catapulted Allende to literary...
by Isabel AllendeIsabel Allende Llona, , is a Chilean-American writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is one of the first successful women writers in Latin America...
. One character, Clara "the Clarivoyant" Trueba, is said to have helped him in his rise to fame and another member of the Trueba family later attends his funeral.
- In 2008 the writer Roberto Ampuero
Roberto Ampuero is a prolific award-winning and best-selling Chilean novelist, columnist and professor. He is the author of the popular detective series featuring Cayetano Brulé, a Cuban private detective who lives in Chile...
published a novel El caso Neruda, about his private eye Cayetano Brulé, where Pablo Neruda is one of the protagonists.*
- Neruda is referred to as the poet-statesmen in the 1998 Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi
Poet and novelist Giannina Braschi is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! and the poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams , which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States...
.
Films and television
- In the film G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane is a 1997 action film that tells the fictional story of the first woman to undergo training in U.S. Navy Special Warfare Group. Although often believed to be U.S. Navy SEAL training, the character of Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil is selected to undergo SEAL/CRT Training for U.S. Navy SEAL...
, Master Chief John Urgayle (played by Viggo MortensenViggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer, and painter.His film roles include Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Frank T...
) quotes Pablo Neruda by saying "When I see the sea once more will the sea have seen or not seen me?". This is taken from Neruda's work The Book of Questions.
- In The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie...
, Neruda is referenced in an argument between Bart and Lisa over the nature of the soul: (Lisa: "Hmm. Pablo Neruda said 'Laughter is the language of the soul.'" Bart: "I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.")
- Pablo Neruda is mentioned in How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother is an Emmy Award winning American sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 19, 2005. The show was created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays...
in the episode "The Naked Man"The Naked Man" is the ninth episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother. It aired on November 24, 2008.- Plot :...
" and in "The Three Days Rule" in the quote: (Stan: "I wait for it and it envelops me, and so you, bread and light and shadow are." Marshall: "I do not know what bread was doing in there, but that touched me, here and here.")
- In the Italian film Il Postino
Il Postino is a 1994 Italian language film directed by Michael Radford.The film was originally released in the U.S. as The Postman, a straight translation of the Italian title...
, Pablo Neruda, portrayed by Philippe NoiretPhilippe Noiret was a French film actor.-Biography:Noiret's father was in the clothes trade. Philippe was an indifferent scholar and attended several prestigious Paris schools. He failed several times to pass his baccalauréat exams, so he decided to study theater...
, befriends a postman and inspires in him a love of poetry.
- A documentary film is in production on Neruda's life, times, and poetry, Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling'', directed by Mexican director Carlos Bolado and Mark Eisner.
- In the movie Patch Adams
Hunter Campbell "Patch" Adams, M.D. is an American physician, social activist, citizen diplomat, professional clown, performer, and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1972...
, a portion of Neruda's Love Sonnet 17 is read as a remembrance of the character's dead lover.
Further reading
English
- Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems, ed. Ilan Stavans (2003).
- Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu, by John Felstiner (1980)
- Pablo Neruda / Durán, Manuel., 1981
- Pablo Neruda: The Secrets of the Chilean Poet and Diplomat, 1981
- Pablo Neruda: all poets the poet / Bizzarro, Salvatore., 1979
- The poetry of Pablo Neruda / Costa, René de., 1979
- Pablo Neruda: Memoirs (Confieso que he vivido: Memorias) / tr. St. Martin, Hardie., 1977
- The Essential Neruda / ed. Mark Eisner, intro by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lights), 2004
- Paz and Neruda: A Clash of Literary Titans/ Americas Magazine, July 2008/ Jaime Perales Contrerashttp://www.thefreelibrary.com/Clash+of+literary+titans.-a0180277640/
Recent English translations of Neruda's late and posthumous work
- World's End (Copper Canyon Press
Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit literary publishing company, specializing in the publication of poetry and located in the picturesque town of Port Townsend, Washington. Since 1972, the Press has published poetry exclusively and has established an international reputation for its...
, 2009) (translated by William O'Daly)
- The Hands of the Day (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) (translated by William O'Daly)
- The Book of Questions (Copper Canyon Press, 1991, 2001) (translated by William O'Daly)
- The Yellow Heart (Copper Canyon Press, 1990, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly)
- Stones of the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 1990, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly)
- The Sea and the Bells (Copper Canyon Press, 1988, 2002) (translated by William O'Daly)
- Winter Garden (Copper Canyon Press, 1987, 2002) (translated by James Nolan)
- The Separate Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 1985) (translated by William O'Daly)
- Still Another Day (Copper Canyon Press, 1984, 2005) (translated by William O'Daly)
- On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea (Rayo Harper Collins, 2004) (translated by Alastair Reid
Alastair Reid is a poet and a scholar of South American literature from Galloway in Scotland. He is known for his lighthearted style of poems and for his translations of South American poets Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda. Although he is famous for translations, his own poems are gaining note...
, epilogue Antonio SkármetaAntonio Skármeta is a Chilean writer of Croatian descent, born November 7, 1940 in Antofagasta, Chile....
)
- Intimacies: Poems of Love (Harper Collins, 2008) (translated by Alastair Reid
Alastair Reid is a poet and a scholar of South American literature from Galloway in Scotland. He is known for his lighthearted style of poems and for his translations of South American poets Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda. Although he is famous for translations, his own poems are gaining note...
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Spanish
- Pablo Neruda y su tiempo. Las furias y las penas / David Schidlowsky, RIL editores, Santiago de Chile 2008, 2 Volumes.
- Paz y Neruda: Historia de una amistad/Jaime Perales Contreras.,2008. Revista Américas, (Organización de los Estados Americanos), julio 2008.
- Pablo Neruda en Cuba y Cuba en Pablo Neruda / Angel I Augier., 2005
- Neruda por Skármeta / Antonio Skármeta., 2004
- Neruda, memoria crepitante / Virginia Vidal., 2003
- Voy a vivirme : variaciones y complementos nerudianos / Volodia Teitelboim., 1998
- Neruda y Arauco / Maria Maluenda., 1998
- Para leer a Neruda / Hugo Montes., 1997
- Neruda y la mujer / Berna Pérez de Burrell., 1993
- Para leer a Pablo Neruda / José Carlos Rovira., 1991
- Neruda, voz y universo / Mario Ferrero., 1988
- Neruda total / Eulogio Suárez., 1988
- Nuevas aproximaciones a Pablo Neruda / Angel Flores., 1987
- Neruda : un hombre de la Araucania / Rafael Aguayo., 1987
- Asturias y Neruda : cuatro estudios para dos poetas / Giuseppe Tavani., 1985
- Neruda, 10 años después / Floridor Pérez., 1983
- El pensamiento poético de Pablo Neruda / Alain Sicard., 1981
- Poesía y estilo de Pablo Neruda / Amado Alonso., 1979
- Mi pequeña historia de Pablo Neruda / Arturo Aldunate Phillips., 1979
- Conocer Neruda y su obra / Alberto Cousté., 1979
- La poesía de Neruda / Luis Rosales., 1978
- Pablo Neruda : naturaleza, historia y poética / Eduardo Camacho Guizado., 1978
- Rilke, Pound, Neruda : tres claves de la poesía contemporánea / José Miguel Ibáñez Langlois., 1978
- Poesía y estilo de Pablo Neruda : interpretación de una poesía hermética / Amado Alonso., 1977
Turkish'
- Buğdayın Türküsü (Original: Oda al trigo, Translated by Hilmi Yavuz and composed by Selim Atakan for Yeni Türkü
Yeni Türkü is one of the best selling and best-known bands in Turkey. They had concerts in more than twenty countries and have recorded many albums since the establishment in 1978. Their music is based on combining the sound of traditional Turkish and modern musical instruments, such as the oud,...
, which is a Turkish music grup. It was found albums of "Buğdayın Türküsü", which was debut album for the group in 1979 and "Rumeli Konseri" in 1991. It was published in Nihat Behram's "Türk Halk ve Dünya Edebiyatından Başkaldırı Şiirleri Antolojisi" book in 2001.)
- Oğulları Ölen Analara Türkü (Original: Canto a las madres de los milicianos muertos, it was published in Nihat Behram's "Türk Halk ve Dünya Edebiyatından Başkaldırı Şiirleri Antolojisi" book in 2001.)
- Karakas'taki Migual Otero Silva'ya Mektup (Original: Carta a Miguel Otero Silva, en Caracas, it was published in Nihat Behram's "Türk Halk ve Dünya Edebiyatından Başkaldırı Şiirleri Antolojisi" book in 2001.)
- Diktatörler (Original: Los dictadores, it was published in Nihat Behram's "Türk Halk ve Dünya Edebiyatından Başkaldırı Şiirleri Antolojisi" book in 2001.)
- Bazı Şeyleri Açıklıyorum (Original: Explico algunas cosas, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999 and Nihat Behram's "Türk Halk ve Dünya Edebiyatından Başkaldırı Şiirleri Antolojisi" one in 2001.)
- Okyanusun İhtiyar Kadınları (Origial: Las mujeres suicidas del océano, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Magellan'ın Yüreği (1519) (Original: El corazón magallánico (1519), it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Tavşanlı Çocuk (Original: Oda al niño de la liebre, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Odun Kokusu (Original: Olor a madera, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Gemi (Original: El navío, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Guilermina Acaba Nerde ? (Original: ¿Dónde estará la Guillermina? , it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Walking Around (it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
- Alberto Rojas Jimenez Geliyor Uçarak (Original: Alberto Rojas Giménez viene volando, it was published in Ülkü Tamer's book of "Çağdaş latin Amerika Şiiri Antolojisi" in 1982 and in 1999)
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