Pablo Neruda

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, adopting the pen name Pablo Neruda, was born on July 12, 1904, in Parral. Raised in the rainy frontier town of Temuco, Neruda published Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada in 1924 at age nineteen, which became the bestselling poetry collection in Spanish history.

Serving as diplomat in Burma, Ceylon, Java, and Spain during the Spanish Civil War, Neruda embraced communism, authoring his colossal 1950 epic Canto General, an encyclopedic hymn to the geography, indigenous struggles, and history of the Americas. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, he died twelve days after the brutal September 11, 1973 coup. His home at Isla Negra overlooks the Pacific breakers he loved.