He started writing at the age of 10. When he was only 12 years old, he met Gabriela Mistral, a famous Chilean poet, who introduced him to the classical writers who would influence his career and political decisions. We’re talking about Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, a name that little or nothing will tell to those who read him. It is, however, Pablo Neruda’s Christian name, and this is a big, huge name of the Chilean literature around the world. He was born on July 12th, 1904 in Parral, Chile, and died on September 23rd, 1973, in Santiago. In 1923 he wrote his first book, Crepusculario, and at the age of 20 became the best known Chilean poet. He had an intense life, full of love and disaffection, marked by his political ideologies and, above all, for his immense literary work. Neruda's poetry, translated into almost every language, represents a constant change, associated to his life experience. One of the most enigmatic masterpieces is Residencia en la tierra, in which he cut off relations with the traditional system and created a personalized poetic technique, even though full of realism, which became known as Nerudism. Pablo Neruda was awarded the National Prize for Literature, Lenine Peace Prize (1953) and Nobel Prize in Literature (1971).
Translated by the Portuguese poet Nuno Júdice, Poems of Love has just been released by Don Quixote publishers. This is a book that gathers the great love poems by Pablo Neruda, whose writing strongly influenced many South American poets. Like his other works, this is a book involved in a whole universe of magic and passion, which is a writing characteristic of the author of Twenty Love Poems and A desperate song. Pablo Neruda's Love poems will be in bookstores on October 29th.
