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Pablo
Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo
Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town
of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee
and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a
teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved
to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia
Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in
Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral,
head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking
to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute
some articles to the daily "La Mañana", among them,
Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his first publication -
and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor
to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen
name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of
the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of
the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found
in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The
following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas
de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known
and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities,
Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University
of Chile in Santiago.
Between 1927 and 1935, the government put him in charge
of a number of honorary consulships, which took him
to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona,
and Madrid. His poetic production during that difficult
period included, among other works, the collection of
esoteric surrealistic poems, Residencia en la tierra
(1933), which marked his literary breakthrough.
The
Spanish Civil War and the murder of García Lorca, whom
Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join
the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in
France, where he started working on his collection of
poems España en el Corazón (1937). The same year
he returned to his native country, to which he had been
recalled, and his poetry during the following period
was characterised by an orientation towards political
and social matters. España en el Corazón had
a great impact by virtue of its being printed in the
middle of the front during the civil war.
In
1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration,
residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, Consul General
in Mexico, where he rewrote his Canto General de
Chile, transforming it into an epic poem about the
whole South American continent, its nature, its people
and its historical destiny. This work, entitled Canto
General, was published the same year in Mexico,
and also underground in Chile. It consists of approximately
250 poems brought together into fifteen literary cycles
and constitutes the central part of Neruda's production.
Shortly after its publication, Canto General
was translated into some ten languages. Nearly all these
poems were created in a difficult situation, when Neruda
was living abroad.
In
1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected
senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist
Party of Chile. Due to his protests against President
González Videla's repressive policy against striking
miners in 1947, he had to live underground in his own
country for two years until he managed to leave in 1949.
After living in different European countries he returned
home in 1952. A great deal of what he published during
that period bears the stamp of his political activities;
one example is Las Uvas y el Viento (1954), which
can be regarded as the diary of Neruda's exile. In
Odas elementales (1954- 1959) his message is expanded
into a more extensive description of the world, where
the objects of the hymns - things, events and relations
- are duly presented in alphabetic form.
Neruda's
production is exceptionally extensive. For example,
his Obras Completas, constantly republished,
comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages
was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two
volumes. Among his works of the last few years can be
mentioned Cien sonetos de amor (1959), which
includes poems dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia,
Memorial de Isla Negra, a poetic work of an autobiographic
character in five volumes, published on the occasion
of his sixtieth birthday, Arte de pajáros (1966),
La Barcarola (1967), the play Fulgor y muerte
de Joaquín Murieta (1967), Las manos del día
(1968), Fin del mundo (1969), Las piedras
del cielo (1970), and La espada encendida. From
http://www.nobel.se
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