Pablo Neruda was born on July 12, 1904, in Parral, Chile, with the full name Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto. Shortly after he was born, Neruda’s mother died. He and his father moved to Temuco, where he married another woman. Neruda grew up in Temuco with his half-siblings and started writing poetry at age 10.

Despite his father’s disapproval, Neruda continued to write poetry with encouragement from many people. One of his early supporters was Gabriela Mistral, a future Nobel laureate. At age 13, Neruda published his first work in their local newspaper. From there, Neruda started publishing various poetry and essays in local magazines, using the name Neftali Reyes. In 1919, he won third place in a literary contest for his poem “Comunion Ideal.”

In 1921, Neruda moved to Santiago to study at the Universidad de Chile, intending to become a teacher. However, he was more devoted to his poetry than his study. With the help of writer Eduardo Barrios, Neruda met prominent Chilean publisher Don Carlos George Nascimento, and by 1923, his first volume of verse called Book of Twilights was published. The following year, he published Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song, a collection of love poems. Over the years, Twenty Love Poems became Neruda’s best-selling book, and the most popular book of poems in Spanish.

By the mid-1920s, Neruda started using the pen name Pablo Neruda, after his favorite writer, Jan Neruda. He published the collection The Attempt of the Infinite Man and his first novel, The Inhabitant and His Hope, in 1926. In 1927, he started working as a diplomat in West Asia to make ends meet. This was also when he started to experiment with various poetry forms. Most of his poems from his collection Residence on Earth were written in this period.

Residence on Earth (Residencia en la Tierra) was published in two parts, in 1933 and 1935. The book contained many surrealist poems and was considered the collection containing Neruda’s best work. In 1947, he added a third part called Tercera Residencia.

Other than his poetry, Neruda also became an important diplomatic figure. He worked not only in Asia, but also in Spain, France, and Mexico. While in Mexico, he published an epic poem called Canto General, which discussed the entire South American continent, including its people, history, and culture. The epic contained a total of 250 novels and was later translated into 10 languages.

Neruda continued to write poetry while working as a consul, then as a senator, and even through his exile from Chile. Les Uvas y El Viento(1954) was considered a diary that tackled his exile. In 1970, Neruda was a presidential candidate but later bowed out of the race. Neruda was then appointed the Chilean ambassador to France, his last diplomatic post.

Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971, “for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams.”

In the midst of the Chilean coup d’état of 1973, Neruda died of a heart failure. Today, Neruda’s houses in Chile served as museums: La Chascona in Santiago, La Sebastiana in Valparaíso, and Casa de Isla Negra in Isla Negra, where he and Matilde Urrutia are buried.

Sources:

• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pablo-neruda
• https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/

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