Pablo Neruda
Chilean poet and politician (1904-1973)
Pablo Neruda: poetry across love, exile and politics
Early books in Chile
Born in Parral, Chile, Pablo Neruda spent his youth in Temuco and published writing while still a teenager. He began using the name Pablo Neruda around 1920. His first book, Crepusculario, appeared in 1923, followed by Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair in 1924. The latter became one of the works most closely associated with his early poetry.
Diplomacy and political change
Consular appointments took Neruda through Asia, Argentina and Spain between 1927 and 1935. The Spanish Civil War and the killing of Federico García Lorca helped turn his writing toward public events. Back in Chile he became a senator and joined the Communist Party. His political conflict with the government later forced him into hiding and then exile.
A continental voice and the Nobel Prize
Canto General, published in 1950, expanded his poetic scope to the landscapes, histories and peoples of Latin America. Later collections included Elemental Odes and One Hundred Love Sonnets, showing a range wider than his early love poems. Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. He died in Santiago in 1973, leaving a body of work inseparable from both literary experiment and political engagement.
Data and sources
NobelPrize.org — Pablo Neruda, biographical ↗