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'{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] --> | name = Pablo Neruda | awards = {{awd|[[Nobel Prize in Literature]]|1971}} | image = Pablo Neruda.jpg | birthname = Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto | birthdate = {{Birth date|1904|7|12|mf=y}} | birthplace = [[Parral, Chile|Parral]], [[Chile]] | deathdate = {{Death date and age|1973|9|23|1904|7|12|mf=y}} | deathplace = [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]], Chile | occupation = Poet, Diplomat, Political figure | signature = Firma Pablo Neruda.svg }} {{Refimprove|date=June 2010}} '''Pablo Neruda''' (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet and politician '''Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto'''. He chose his pen name after [[Czechs|Czech]] poet [[Jan Neruda]]. Neruda wrote in a variety of styles such as erotically charged love poems as in his collection ''[[Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair]]'', [[surrealism|surrealist]] poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]]. [[Colombian people|Colombian]] novelist [[Gabriel García Márquez]] once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."<ref>{{Cite web|author=All Things Considered |url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3319014 |title=A Reading in Honor of Pablo Neruda's Centennial |publisher=NPR |date= |accessdate=2010-03-11}}</ref> Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was the colour of (hope). On July 15, 1945, at [[Pacaembu Stadium]] in [[São Paulo]], [[Brazil]], he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader [[Luís Carlos Prestes]].<ref>[http://www.neruda.uchile.cl/cronologia/cronologia6.htm Neruda | La vida del poeta | Cronología | 1944–1953], Fundación Neruda, University of Chile. Retrieved 29 December 2006.</ref> During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the [[Chilean Communist Party]]. When a Conservative Chilean President [[Gabriel González Videla|González Videla]] outlawed [[communism]] in Chile in 1948, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of [[Valparaíso]]. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near [[Maihue Lake]] into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to [[socialism|socialist]] President [[Salvador Allende]]. When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Allende invited him to read at the [[Estadio Nacional de Chile|Estadio Nacional]] before 70,000 people.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Wyman | first = Eva Goldschmidt Wyman | authorlink = | coauthors = Fuentes, Zurita Harris, Victoria Frankel Montealegre, Jorge | title = The Poets and The General: Chile's Voices Of Dissent Under Augusto Pinochet | publisher = Lom Ediciones | date = December 2002 | location = | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = | page = 18 }} </ref> Neruda was hospitalized with cancer at the time of the Chilean coup d'état led by [[Augusto Pinochet]]. 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. ==Biography== ===Early years=== Ricardo Eliezer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto was born in [[Parral, Chile|Parral]], a city in [[Linares Province]] in the [[Maule Region]], some 350&nbsp;km south of [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]]. 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 [[Temuco]], where his father married Trinidad Candia Marverde, a woman with whom he 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. On September 26, 1904 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 Mistral]], who headed the local girls' school. On July 18, 1917, at the age of thirteen, he published his first work, an essay entitled ''Entusiasmo y perseverancia'' (Enthusiasm and Perseverance) in the local daily newspaper, ''La Mañana'', signed by Neftalí Reyes. From 1918 to mid 1920 Neftali Reyes published numerous poems such as ''Mis ojos'' (My eyes) and other essays in local magazines. In 1919 he participated in a literary contest “Juegos Florales del Maule” where he won third place for his poem ''Comunión ideal'' or ''Nocturno ideal''. By mid 1920, when he adopted the pseudonym of Pablo Neruda, he was a published author of poetry, prose, and journalism. His father, a practical man, did not want to have a poet son. The young poet wanted to find a name that would mislead his father. "Neruda" originated from the famous Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda. Years later, Pablo Neruda in recognition of the great Czech poet, left a flower at the foot of his statue in Prague “Confieso que he vivido”. Pablo is thought to be from [[Paul Verlaine]]. ===''Veinte poemas''=== In the following year (1921) he moved to [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]] to study French 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 Song of Despair"), 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 [[Chile]], but he was plagued by poverty. In 1927, out of desperation, he took an honorary consulship in [[Yangon|Rangoon]], then a part of colonial [[Myanmar|Burma]] and a place of which he had never heard before. Later, he worked stints in [[Colombo]] ([[Ceylon]]), [[Jakarta|Batavia]] ([[Java (island)|Java]]), and [[Singapore]]. 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 [[surrealism|surrealistic]] poems. {{Quote box |width=350px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right |quote =<poem> from '''"Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon"''' Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure brilliance opens between your columns? What ancient night does a man touch with his senses? Loving is a journey with water and with stars, with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour: loving is a clash of lightning-bolts and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey. </poem>|source =From "Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon", </br>''Selected Poems'' translated by Stephen Mitchell (1997) <ref>[http://www.eagleharborbooks.com/book/9780061733574 "Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon"]</ref>}} ===Spanish Civil War=== After returning to Chile, Neruda was given diplomatic posts in [[Buenos Aires]] and then [[Barcelona]], Spain. He later replaced Gabriela Mistral as consul in [[Madrid]], where he became the center of a lively literary circle, befriending such writers as [[Rafael Alberti]], [[Federico García Lorca]], and the Peruvian poet [[César Vallejo]]. A daughter, Malva Marina Trinidad, was born in Madrid in 1934; she was to be plagued with health problems, especially [[hydrocephalus]], 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 Argentine 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 who 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 Franco]]. By means of his speeches and writings, Neruda threw his support behind the [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican]] side, publishing a collection of poetry called ''España en el corazón'' ("Spain in The Heart"). Neruda’s wife and child moved to [[Monte Carlo]]; he was never to see either of them again. After leaving his wife, he took up full time with del Carril in France. Following the election in 1938 of President [[Pedro Aguirre Cerda]], whom Neruda supported, he was appointed special consul for Spanish emigration in Paris. 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 [[Concentration camps in France|squalid camps]], to Chile on an old boat called the ''[[Winnipeg (ship)|Winnipeg]]''. Neruda is sometimes charged with only selecting communists for emigration while excluding others who had fought on the side of the Republic {{Citation needed|date=September 2007}}; 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 Negrín]], president of the [[Spanish Republican government in Exile]]. ===Mexico=== Neruda's next diplomatic post was as Consul General in Mexico City, 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 Netherlands from various health problems. He also became a friend of the Stalinist assassin [[Vittorio Vidali]]. After the failed 1940 assassination attempt against [[Leon Trotsky]], Neruda arranged a Chilean visa for the Mexican painter [[David Alfaro Siqueiros]] who was accused of having been one of the conspirators. Neruda later said he did it at the request of Mexican President [[Manuel Ávila Camacho]]. 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 [[Chillán]]. 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 Paz]] with whom he nearly came to blows in 1942 ===Return to Chile=== In 1943, following his return to Chile, Neruda made a tour of Peru, where he visited [[Machu Picchu]]. The austere beauty of the [[Inca]] citadel later inspired [[The Heights of Macchu Picchu|''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 General]]''. 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 Espada]], poet and professor of creative writing at the [[University 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{{citation needed|date=February 2011}}, came to admire the [[Soviet Union]] of [[Joseph Stalin]]{{citation needed|date=February 2011}}, partly for the role it played in defeating [[Nazi Germany]] (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 II]]) wrote praise of [[Fulgencio Batista]] (''Saludo a Batista'', i.e. ''Salute to Batista'') and later to [[Fidel Castro]]. His fervent Stalinism eventually drove a wedge between Neruda and longtime friend [[Octavio Paz]] who commented that ''Neruda became more and more Stalinist, while I became less and less enchanted with Stalin''.<ref>Roman, Joe. (1993) ''Octavio Paz'' Chelsea House Publishers ISBN 0791012492</ref> 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 Solzhenitsyn]] he wrote that when he thinks of <blockquote> Neruda and other famous Stalinist writers and poets, I feel the gooseflesh that I get from reading certain passages of the ''[[Inferno (Dante)|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.<ref>Paz, Octavio (1991) ''On Poets and Others''. Arcade. ISBN 1559701390 p.&nbsp;127</ref></blockquote> Neruda called [[Lenin]] the "great genius of this century". Another speech (June 5, 1946) is a tribute to the late Soviet leader [[Mikhail Kalinin]], who for Neruda was "man of noble life", "the great constructor of the future", "a comrade of arms of Lenin and Stalin".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://libros.libertaddigital.com/articulo.php/1276229541 |title=Alberto Acereda - El otro Pablo Neruda - Libros |publisher=Libros.libertaddigital.com |date=1990-01-01 |accessdate=2010-03-11}}</ref> Neruda later came to rue his support of the Soviet leader; after [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s famous [[Secret Speech]] at the Soviet [[20th Party Congress]] in 1956, which denounced the "[[cult of personality]]" 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 China in 1957, Neruda would later write: "What has estranged me from the Chinese revolutionary process has not been [[Mao Zedong|Mao Tse-tung]] but Mao Tse-tungism", which he dubbed Mao Tse-Stalinism: "the repetition of a cult of a Socialist deity".{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}} 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 [[dissident]] writers like [[Boris Pasternak]] and [[Joseph Brodsky]]: an attitude with which even some of his staunchest admirers disagreed. ===Senator=== On March 4, 1943 Neruda was elected a [[Communist]] party [[Senate of Chile|senator]] for the northern provinces of [[Antofagasta Region|Antofagasta]] and [[Tarapacá Region|Tarapacá]] in the arid and inhospitable [[Atacama Desert]]. He officially joined the [[Communist Party of Chile]] four months later. {{Wikisource|I accuse (Neruda)|I Accuse}} In 1946, Radical Party presidential candidate [[Gabriel González Videla]] 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 [[Lota, Chile|Lota]] on October 1947, where striking workers were herded into island military prisons and a concentration camp in the town of [[Pisagua]]. Neruda's criticism of González Videla culminated in a dramatic speech in the Chilean senate on January 6, 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 [[Valdivia, Chile|Valdivia]] in southern Chile. From Valdivia he moved to ''Fundo Huishue'' a forestry estate in the vicinities of [[Huishue Lake]]. Neruda's life underground ended in March 1949 when he fled over the [[Lilpela Pass]] on the [[Andes Mountains]] to [[Argentina]] 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 Aires]] a friend of Neruda, the future Nobel winner and novelist [[Miguel Ángel Asturias]], 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 Picasso]] arranged his entrance into Paris{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}} and Neruda made a surprise appearance there to a stunned [[World Congress of Peace Forces]], the Chilean government meanwhile denying{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}} that the poet could have escaped the country. Neruda spent those three years traveling extensively throughout Europe as well as taking trips to India, China, [[Sri Lanka]] and the [[Soviet Union]]. His trip to Mexico in late 1949 was lengthened due to a serious bout of [[phlebitis]]. A Chilean singer named [[Matilde Urrutia]] 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 General]]'', a [[Walt Whitman|Whitmanesque]] catalog of the history, geography, and flora and fauna of South America, 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 Italian historian [[Edwin Cerio]] on the island of [[Capri]] was fictionalized in [[Antonio Skarmeta]]'s 1985 novel ''Ardiente Paciencia'' (''Ardent Patience'', later known as ''El cartero de Neruda'', or ''Neruda's Postman''), which inspired the popular film ''[[Il Postino]]'' ("The Postman", 1994). ===Return to Chile=== [[Image:Pablo Neruda (1966).jpg|thumb|right|Neruda recording his poetry at the U.S. Library of Congress in 1966.]] 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 Allende]] 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 he sent her back to Chile in 1955. She convinced the Chilean officials to lift his arrest allowing Urrutia and Neruda to go to Capri, Italy. 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 crisis]] (later in the decade he would likewise repeatedly condemn the U.S. for the [[Vietnam War]]). 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 Agency]], 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{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}}. 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 Sartre]]. [[Image:La Sebastiana Neruda 1.jpg|thumb|right|upright|La Sebastiana, Neruda's house in [[Valparaíso]]]] In 1966, Neruda was invited to attend an [[International PEN]] 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 Miller]], eventually prevailed upon the [[Lyndon B. Johnson|Johnson]] Administration to grant Neruda a visa. Neruda gave readings to packed halls, and even recorded some poems for the [[Library of Congress]]. 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 Fuentes]] later wrote that the PEN conference marked a "beginning of the end" of the [[Cold War]]. Upon Neruda's return to Chile, he stopped off in Peru, where he gave readings to enthusiastic crowds in Lima and [[Arequipa]] and was received by President [[Fernando Belaúnde Terry]]. However, the visit prompted an unpleasant backlash. The Peruvian government had come out against the government in [[Cuba]] of [[Fidel Castro]], 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 Guevara]] in [[Bolivia]] in 1967, Neruda wrote several articles regretting the loss of a "great hero".{{Citation needed|date=July 2007}} At the same time, he told his friend Aida Figueroa not to cry for Che, but for [[Luis Emilio Recabarren]], the father of the Chilean communist movement, who preached a pacifist revolution over Che's violent ways.<ref>"Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling <http://www.redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda.php>"</ref> ===Final years=== [[Image:La Chascona Santiago de Chile.jpg|thumb|La Chascona, Neruda's house in [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]].]] In 1970, Neruda was nominated as a candidate for the Chilean presidency, but ended up giving his support to [[Salvador Allende]], 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). During his stint as Chilean ambassador in Paris, France Neruda helped to renegotiate the external debt of Chile, billions owed to European and American banks, but within months of his arrival in Paris his health began to deteriorate. Neruda returned to Chile two and half years later due to his failing health. In 1971, having sought the prize for years, Neruda was finally awarded the [[Nobel Prize]]. 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 Lundkvist]], did his best to ensure the Chilean the prize. "A poet", Neruda stated in his Stockholm speech of acceptance of the Nobel Prize, "is at the same time a force for solidarity and for solitude." The following year Neruda was awarded the prestigious Golden Wreath Award at the [[Struga Poetry Evenings]]. As the [[Chilean coup of 1973|disturbances of 1973]] unfolded, Neruda, then terminally ill with [[prostate cancer]], was devastated by the mounting attacks on the Allende government. The military coup led by General [[Augusto Pinochet]] on September 11 saw Neruda's hopes for a [[Marxism|Marxist]] 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: "Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry."{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} {{Quote box |width=350px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right |quote =<poem> '''Curse''' Furrowed motherland, I swear that in your ashes you will be born like a flower of eternal water I swear that from your mouth of thirst will come to the air the petals of bread, the spilt inaugurated flower. Cursed, cursed, cursed be those who with an ax and serpent came to your earthly arena, cursed those who waited for this day to open the door of the dwelling to the moor and the bandit: What have you achieved? Bring, bring the lamp, see the soaked earth, see the blackened little bone eaten by the flames, the garment of murdered Spain. </poem>|source ="Curse" from ''Spain In Our Hearts'' (1973) </br> translated by Donald D. Walsh <ref>[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19173 "Curse"]</ref>}} Neruda died of heart failure on the evening of September 23, 1973, at Santiago's Santa María Clinic.<ref>"Pablo Neruda, Nobel Poet, Dies in a Chilean Hospital", ''The New York Times'', September 24, 1973.</ref><ref>''Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems'', Robert Bly, ed.; Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, p. xii.</ref><ref>''Earth-Shattering Poems'', Liz Rosenberg, ed.; Henry Holt, New York, 1998, p. 105.</ref> The funeral took place amidst a massive [[Carabineros de Chile|police]] presence, and mourners took advantage of the occasion to protest against the new regime, established just a couple of weeks before. In 1974 his ''Memoirs'' appears under the title ''I Confess I Have Lived'', updated to the last days of the poet’s life, and including a final segment describing the death of Salvador Allende during the storming of the Moneda Palace by Pinochet and other generals – occurring only twelve days before Neruda died. To the very last day of his life, Neruda continued to dictate his memoirs and poems until his passing. 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 [[Valparaíso]], and [[Casa de Isla Negra]] in [[El Quisco|Isla Negra]], where he and Matilde Urrutia are buried. A bust of Neruda stands on the south side of the [[Organization of American States]] building in Washington D.C. ==Borges== During the late 1960s, Argentine writer [[Jorge Luis Borges]] was asked for his opinion of Pablo Neruda. After describing a brief meeting with him when both were young, Borges stated, "I think of him as a very fine poet, a very fine poet. I don't admire him as a man, I think of him as a very mean man."<ref>[[Richard Burgin]], ''Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges'', Holt, Rhinehart, & Winston, 1968. p 95.</ref> When asked for the reasons for this, Borges continued, <blockquote>"Well, he wrote a book -- well, maybe here I'm being political -- he wrote a book about the tyrants of South America, and then he had several stanzas against the United States. Now he knows that that's rubbish. And he had not a word against [[Juan Domingo Perón|Perón]]. Because he had a lawsuit in [[Buenos Aires]], that was explained to me afterwards, and he didn't care to risk anything. And so, when he was supposed to be writing at the top of his voice, full of noble indignation, he had not a word to say against Perón. And he was married to an Argentine lady, he knew that many of his friends had been sent to jail. He knew all about the state of our country, but not a word against him. At the same time, he was speaking against the United States, knowing the whole thing was a lie, no? But, of course, that doesn't mean anything against his poetry. Neruda is a very fine poet, a great poet in fact. And when they gave [[Miguel Ángel Asturias|Miguel de Asturias]] the [[Nobel Prize]], I said that it should have been given to Neruda! Now when I was in [[Chile]], and we were on different political sides, I think he did the best thing to do. He went on a holiday during the three or four days I was there so there was no occasion for our meeting. But I think he was acting politely, no? Because he knew that people would be playing him up against me, no? I mean, I was an Argentine, poet, he was a Chilean poet, he's on the side of the [[Communist]]s, I'm against them. So I felt he was behaving very wisely in avoiding a meeting that would have been quite uncomfortable for both of us."<ref>Burgin 1968, p96.</ref></blockquote> ==Legacy== ===Music=== * Greek composer [[Mikis Theodorakis]] set to music the famous ''Canto General''. * Mexican composer [[Daniel Catán]] wrote an opera ''Il Postino'' (2010) with Spanish tenor [[Plácido Domingo]] portraying Pablo Neruda. * Folk rock / progressive rock group [[Los Jaivas]], famous in Chile, used ''[[Canto General#The Heights of Macchu Picchu|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 Llosa]]. * [[Peter Lieberson]] composed ''Neruda Songs'', a classical and operatic cycle based on five of Neruda's love poems. * The South African musician [[Johnny Clegg]] drew heavily on Neruda in his early work with the band [[Juluka]]. * Canadian rock group Red Rider named their 1983 LP/CD release, ''Neruda''. * Pop band [[Sixpence None the Richer]] set his poem "Puedo Escribir" to music on their platinum selling self-titled album (1997). *The group "Brazilian Girls" turned Poema 15 (poem 15) from ''Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (20 love poems and a song of despair'') into their song "Me Gusta Cuando Callas" from their self-titled album. * With permission from the Fundación Neruda, [[Marco Katz]] composed a song cycle based on the volume ''Piedras del cielo'' for voice and piano.<ref>[http://www.fundacionneruda.org/][http://www.sydmusic.com/ediciones.htm][http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?]</ref> * The Occitan singer Joanda composed a song named ''Pablo Neruda'' <ref>[http://www.joanda.fr/album-joanda/single-pablo-neruda/]</ref> ===Literature=== * Neruda's 1952 stay in a villa on the island of [[Capri]] was fictionalized in Chilean author [[Antonio Skarmeta]]'s 1985 novel ''Ardiente Paciencia'' (''Ardent Patience'', later known as ''El cartero de Neruda'', or ''Neruda's Postman''). * In 2008 the writer [[Roberto Ampuero]] published a novel ''El caso Neruda'', about his private eye Cayetano Brulé, where Pablo Neruda is one of the protagonists.* ===Film=== * The Italian film ''[[Il Postino]]'', inspired by [[Antonio Skármeta]]'s 1985 novel ''Ardiente Paciencia'' (''Ardent Patience'', later known as ''El cartero de Neruda'', or ''Neruda's Postman''), centres on the story of Pablo Neruda ([[Philippe Noiret]]) living in exile on [[Salina Island]] near [[Sicily]] during the 1950s. While there, he befriends the local postman and inspires in him a love of poetry. * ''A poet's calling'' is a documentary film about Neruda's life, times, and poetry, directed by Mexican director Carlos Bolado and Mark Eisner.<ref>[http://www.redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda_aboutfilm.php ''A Poet's Calling'']</ref> * ''Neruda'' is a 120 min documentary about his life and poetry including interviews with his friends like Volodia Teitelboim, Jose Balmes, Jorge Edwards, Andrej Wosnessenski, Mikis Theodorakis. This film was directed by the German filmmaker [[Ebbo Demant]] and broadcasted 2004 in the European Cultural TV Channel ARTE and the First German Television ARD. ==See also== {{portal|Poetry}} * [[Cien Sonetos de Amor]] ==Notes== {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} ==References== * Jaime Perales Contreras, " Paz and Neruda: A Clash of Literary Titans", Americas Magazine,(Organization of American States). July 2008. * Adam Feinstein, ''Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life'', Bloomsbury, 2004. (ISBN 1-58234-410-8) *Neruda, Pablo. ''Memoirs'' (translation of ''Confieso que he vivido: Memorias''), translated by Hardie St. Martin, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1977. (1991 edition is ISBN 0-374-20660-0) * {{Cite web|url=http://www.enslow.com/displayitem.asp?type=1&item=2578 |title=Passion, Poetry, Politics|publisher=Enslow|last=Neruda|first=Pablo| isbn= 978-0-7660-2966-8}} ==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 * [http://redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda.php The Essential Neruda] / ed. Mark Eisner, intro by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lights), 2004 *{{Cite web|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Clash+of+literary+titans.-a0180277640 |title=Paz and Neruda: Clash of Literary Titans |publisher=Free Online Library |date=July 2008}} Americas Magazine, Jaime Perales Contreras ''Recent English translations of Neruda's late and posthumous work'' * World's End ([[Copper Canyon Press]], 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]], epilogue [[Antonio Skármeta]]) * Intimacies: Poems of Love (Harper Collins, 2008) (translated by [[Alastair Reid]]) ''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 ==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pablo-neruda Profile at the Poetry Foundation] *[http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/279 Profile at Poets.org with poems and articles] *{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4091/the-art-of-poetry-no-14-pablo-neruda| title=Pablo Neruda, The Art of Poetry No. 14| author= Rita Guibert| date=Spring 1971| work=The Paris Review }} *[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html Nobel Biography] *[http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/16/1442233 "Celebrating Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda"], Amy Goodman of ''Democracy Now!'' interviews [[Martín Espada]], poet and professor at the [[University of Massachusetts Amherst]]. *[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3301011 NPR Morning Edition on Neruda's Centennial] 12 July 2004 (audio 4 mins) [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1813176 "Pablo Neruda's 'Poems of the Sea'"] 5 April 2004 (Audio, 8 mins) *[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/09/08/030908crbo_books1 "The ecstasist: Pablo Neruda and his passions]." ''The New Yorker''. 8 September 2003 *[http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/nobel-Neruda.pdf?scp=11&sq=neruda&st=cse "Neruda, Chilean Poet-Politician, Wins Nobel Prize in Literature" ''New York Times'' 22 October 1971] and [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE4DC1338F930A15756C0A964948260&scp=20&sq=neruda&st=cse "Songs of himself" ''New York Times'', Robert Bly 23 May 1982] *[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/southamerica/chile/8008408/Pablo-Nerudas-Chile.html "Neruda's Chile''. ''Daily Telegraph'' 18 September 2010] {{Normdaten|LCCN=n/79/046560}} {{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1951-1975}} {{Svplaureats}} {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. --> | NAME = Neruda, Pablo | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Poet | DATE OF BIRTH = July 12, 1904 | PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Parral, Chile|Parral]], Chile | DATE OF DEATH = September 23, 1973 | PLACE OF DEATH = [[Santiago, Chile|Santiago]], Chile }} {{DEFAULTSORT:Neruda, Pablo}} [[Category:1904 births]] [[Category:1973 deaths]] [[Category:People from Linares Province]] [[Category:Chilean poets]] [[Category:Cancer deaths in Chile]] [[Category:Ambassadors of Chile to France]] [[Category:Chilean diplomats]] [[Category:Chilean Nobel laureates]] [[Category:Chilean people of Basque descent]] [[Category:Communist poets]] [[Category:Deaths from prostate cancer]] [[Category:Nobel laureates in Literature]] [[Category:People of the Spanish Civil War]] [[Category:Stalin Peace Prize recipients]] [[Category:Surrealist poets]] [[Category:Communist Party of Chile politicians]] [[Category:Chilean senators]] [[Category:National Prize for Literature (Chile) winners]] [[Category:People from Santiago]] [[Category:Pseudonyms]] {{link FA|sl}} [[af:Pablo Neruda]] [[am:ፓብሎ ኔሩዳ]] [[ar:بابلو نيرودا]] [[an:Pablo Neruda]] [[gn:Pablo Neruda]] [[ay:Pablo Neruda]] [[az:Pablo Neruda]] [[bn:পাবলো নেরুদা]] [[zh-min-nan:Pablo Neruda]] [[be:Пабла Неруда]] [[be-x-old:Пабла Нэруда]] [[bs:Pablo Neruda]] [[br:Pablo Neruda]] [[bg:Пабло Неруда]] [[ca:Pablo Neruda]] [[cs:Pablo Neruda]] [[da:Pablo Neruda]] [[de:Pablo Neruda]] [[et:Pablo Neruda]] [[el:Πάμπλο Νερούδα]] [[es:Pablo Neruda]] [[eo:Pablo Neruda]] [[ext:Pablo Neruda]] [[eu:Pablo Neruda]] [[fa:پابلو نرودا]] [[fr:Pablo Neruda]] [[fy:Pablo Neruda]] [[gd:Pablo Neruda]] [[gl:Pablo Neruda]] [[gan:帕部羅·尼努達]] [[gu:પાબ્લો નેરુદા]] [[ko:파블로 네루다]] [[hi:पाब्लो नेरूदा]] [[hsb:Pablo Neruda]] [[hr:Pablo Neruda]] [[io:Pablo Neruda]] [[ilo:Pablo Neruda]] [[id:Pablo Neruda]] [[is:Pablo Neruda]] [[it:Pablo Neruda]] [[he:פבלו נרודה]] [[ka:პაბლო ნერუდა]] [[sw:Pablo Neruda]] [[ku:Pablo Neruda]] [[la:Paulus Neruda]] [[lv:Pablo Neruda]] [[lt:Pablo Neruda]] [[hu:Pablo Neruda]] [[mk:Пабло Неруда]] [[ml:പാബ്ലോ നെരൂദ]] [[nl:Pablo Neruda]] [[ja:パブロ・ネルーダ]] [[no:Pablo Neruda]] [[nn:Pablo Neruda]] [[oc:Pablo Neruda]] [[mrj:Неруда, Пабло]] [[uz:Pablo Neruda]] [[pnb:پیبلو نیرودا]] [[ps:پابلو نرودا]] [[pms:Pablo Neruda]] [[pl:Pablo Neruda]] [[pt:Pablo Neruda]] [[ro:Pablo Neruda]] [[qu:Pablo Neruda]] [[ru:Неруда, Пабло]] [[se:Pablo Neruda]] [[sq:Pablo Neruda]] [[scn:Pablu Neruda]] [[simple:Pablo Neruda]] [[sk:Pablo Neruda]] [[sl:Pablo Neruda]] [[sr:Пабло Неруда]] [[sh:Pablo Neruda]] [[fi:Pablo Neruda]] [[sv:Pablo Neruda]] [[ta:பாப்லோ நெருடா]] [[te:పాబ్లో నెరుడా]] [[tr:Pablo Neruda]] [[uk:Пабло Неруда]] [[vi:Pablo Neruda]] [[wa:Pablo Neruda]] [[war:Pablo Neruda]] [[yo:Pablo Neruda]] [[zh-yue:聶魯達]] [[zh:巴勃罗·聂鲁达]]'