Authors

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (Parral, Chile, 1904 - Santiago de Chile, Chile, 1973), whose real name was Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, is undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of world poetry of the last century. Famous from a very young age, he lived in Santiago from 1920 to 1927, years in which he wrote, among others, the collection of poems "Twenty love poems and a Song of Despair," which has perhaps gained widest popularity of all his work and marks the moment when he first achieves his full powers as a Spanish-language poet. Neruda traveled extensively and and served as Chile's ambassador to several countries, including Burma, France, and Argentina. He was a prominent political activist, member of the Communist Party, and a militant intellectual. Endowed with incomparable verbal power, he also founded a revolutionary conception of poetry. His literary career is one of the main expressive adventures of the lyric in the Spanish language. In awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, the Swedish Academy described him as a poet "who brings to life the destinies and dreams of an entire continent." Neruda was also awarded the International Peace Prize.