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Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) |
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Chilean poet, diplomat and politician who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971, was born in a small Chilean town of Parral. A short time after his birth, his mother died of tuberculosis, and his father was a poor railway worker. Hence, he experienced poverty and deprivation since the beginning of his life. The kind of life which was always reflected in his poetry. He became famous for his poetry in most parts of the world when he was only 20 years old.
At the start of the Spanish civil war of 1936-39, he was in Spain and sided with the Republicans. In the 1940s he joined the Communist Party of Chile, and in 1945 he was elected senator of the Republic. In 1948 after president Videla turned to the right, he was persecuted and necessarily moved to Mexico, then to the Soviet Union, where he was received warmly. In 1952, after the defeat of Videla he returned back to Chile. In 1956, Khrushchev’s revelation of crimes committed during Stalin era deeply shook him, but he always was faithful to the Party.
Pablo Neruda died of leukemia twelve days after the CIA sponsored Pinochet bloody coup. His death was probably accelerated by the murder of Allende and the crimes which were caused by the coup. He was perhaps the most important Latin-American poet of the 20th century. His works are extensive, and here we mention only a few of them.
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Twenty Love Songs and a Song of Despair, 1924.
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Residence on Earth, 1933-35.
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From The Heights of Macchu Picchu, 1943.
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General Song, 1950.
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Captain’s Verses, 1952.
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One hundred Love Sonnets, 1959.
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Isla Negra, a Notebook, 1964.
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Art of Birds, 1966.
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A New Decade, 1969.
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The Sea and the Bells, 1973.
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A Call for Destruction of Nixon and Praise for the Chilean Revolution, published 1974.
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Passion and Impressions, published 1978.