Pablo neruda biography nobel prize poem

In 1969, the Communist Party named him a pre-candidate for President of the Republic. He himself withdrew his candidacy in favor of his friend, the socialist doctor Salvador Allende, who came to power in 1970. Neruda was then appointed ambassador to France. He was in Paris, carrying out that position, when he received the news of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

On September 11, 1973, the government of President Allende was overthrown. Neruda, seriously ill, is transferred from his home on the coast, in Isla Negra, to a clinic in Santiago, where he dies on September 23. He is buried in the mausoleum provided by a family, from where he is later moved to a modest niche in the General Cemetery of Santiago. Only after the recovery of democracy, in December 1992, was his last wish fulfilled when, with great honors, he was buried on Isla Negra, where he rested next to Matilde Urrutia.

Neruda’s work, which includes 45 books, plus various compilations and anthologies, has been translated into more than 35 languages, is known in all countries of the world, and studied in the main universities and literary research centers. Its popularity and validity are permanent and its readers number in the millions throughout the world.

1904–1973

Who Was Pablo Neruda?

Poet Pablo Neruda stirred controversy with his affiliation with the Communist Party and his outspoken support of Joseph Stalin, Fulgencio Batista, and Fidel Castro. His poetic mastery was never in doubt, and for it, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Neruda died on September 23, 1973, with subsequent investigations exploring whether he might have been poisoned.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Pablo Neruda
BORN: July 12, 1904
DIED: September 23, 1973
BIRTH CITY: Parral, Chile
SPOUSES: Maria Antonieta Hagenaar (1930–1936), Delia del Carril (1943–1954), and Matilde Urrutia (1966–1973)
CHILDREN: Malva Marina
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Early Life

Pablo Neruda was born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in the Chilean town of Parral in 1904. His father, José del Carmen Reyes Morales, worked for the railroad, and his mother, Rosa Basoalto, was a teacher who died shortly after his birth. His father moved the family to Temuco when Neruda was a toddler, and José remarried.

At age 13, he began his literary career as a contributor to the daily La Mañana, where he published his first articles and poems. In 1920, he contributed to the literary journal Selva Austral under the pen name Pablo Neruda, which he assumed in honor of Czech poet Jan Neruda. (In 1946, he legally changed his name to his pseudonym.) The next year, he moved to Santiago to study French at university but soon was back to writing poetry.

Poems

Some of Neruda’s early poems are found in his first book, Crepusculario (Book of Twilight), published in 1923, and one of his most renowned works, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), was published the following year. Twenty Love Poems made Neruda a celebrity, and he thereafter devoted himself to verse.

Diplomatic Career

In 1927, Neruda began his long diplomatic career (in the Latin American tradition of honoring poets with diplomat

Chilean poet and politician (1904–1973)

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Reyes and the second or maternal family name is Basoalto.

Pablo Neruda (nə-ROO-də;Spanish pronunciation:[ˈpaβloneˈɾuða]; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historicalepics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).

Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions in various countries during his lifetime and served a term as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When President Gabriel González Videlaoutlawed communism in Chile in 1948, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months, and in 1949, he escaped through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina; he would not return to Chile for more than three years. He was a close advisor to Chile's socialist president Salvador Allende, and when he got back to Chile after accepting his Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people.

Neruda was hospitalized with cancer in September