Pablo Neruda Biography

Pablo Neruda was an author, poet and was an active politician as well as diplomat from Chile. According to Pablo Neruda’s biography, he is still considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and the national writer of Chile. He is famously known under his pen name and he preferred it to keep as it was. He was honoured with the nobel prize for literature in the year 1971. He already established himself as a writer and found his passion for writing at the age of 13 when he started corresponding for one of the local journals. In his later years he established a wide range of his writing styles that included surreal poems, epics that are influenced from history and direct and assertive manifestos of political matters, literal autobiography and passionate love poems.

Other than just being a writer, he also served as a diplomat in many countries as well as being appointed as the senator of Communist Party of Chile. But in 1948 when the president of Chile, Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, banished the communist party and the leftists in the country a warrant was issued against the writer for his arrest. He was helped by his friends in hiding and they hid him under the basements of their houses until he fled from Chile to Argentina and did not return to Chile for three years. He returned to his country only to receive his nobel prize but until then he was a close advisor to the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Post his honouring with the nobel-prize in literature in Stockholm he was invited by the socialist president to reside his works at Estadio Nacional where 70,000 people were present as an audience as written in Pablo Neruda’s biography. He is worldwide famous for all his influential works. Thus Harold Bloom who was one of the critics included Pablo Neruda as one of the writers who is Central to the western institution in his book titled The Western Canon. 

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Early life of Pablo Neruda

He was born in July 1904 in Parral which is a town that fell under Linares Province in Chile which is now known as Maul Region that is about 350 km away from Santiago. The original name of the poet that was given to him was  Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Bosaltotly after his birth. He was born to his parents where his father was a worker at the railroad and his mother who died shortly after his birth was a school teacher by profession. At the age of 13, he started writing for daily La Manana as a correspondent. It was the first daily journal where his poems and articles got published for the first time. Later in 1920, he started writing as a contributor for a literary journal named Selva Austral but he wrote under his pen name that later got famous as his own name, Pablo Neruda which he chooses as inspiration and honour of a great author of his time named Jan Neruda who was from the Czech Republic.

In the year 1921, when he was just 16 he took admission to the University of Chile and moved to Santiago to study French so as to become a teacher like his mother. But soon he was diverted and attracted to writing poems under the guidance of Eduardo Barrios, a well-known writer of his time. He then met with the owner of one of the renowned publishing houses in Chile, Don Carlos. Impressed with his work his first book of poems was named Crepusculario, which means a book of twilight which was published in the year 1923 by the publisher. The book had captured all the poems that he wrote in the early years of his writing career. It is still considered one of Pablo Neruda’s most famous books.

He published most of his books under his pen name because his father disapproved of his passion for writing and his poems. Next year another book of the writer was published by the same publisher the following year. It was a collection of romantic poems and named Viente de Amor y una cancion desesperada which means twenty love poems and a song of despair. Despite it being criticised for its eroticism and because of its tender age especially, it was widely accepted and was translated into many languages. These two books became one of his most accepted and appreciated books around the globe. After that, he published two more books. He published the collection called Tentativa del Homre Infinito and a novel named El habitante y su esperanza. At the age of 20, he established himself as a global figure but was starved in poverty.

Diplomatic And Career In Politics

Due to poverty, he was self compelled to accept an honorary consulship in Rangoon that was the capital of the British colony set up in Burma and later he also administered from Delhi that was under British India as their main province. Rangoon, the place he had never heard of before and being posted there he started feeling lonely and isolated, thus he decided to move from there and worked in many countries like Colombo, Batavia and Singapore. He met his first wife in Batava the following year he reached and married her on 6th December 1930. His wife was Dutch and was a bank employee in Batava. As Neruda was in diplomatic service, he spent most of his days experimenting with his writing styles and wanted to explore a vast range in his writings. Experimenting with his poetic forms he came up with a book that had two versions that included many surreal poems. It was named Residencia en la Tierra.

As in Latin American tradition, a great poet is offered the diplomat post to honour the poet. Thus he was offered the post of diplomat and he finally started his long career in a diplomatic post in the year 1927. He then started moving frequently to various places around the world. The spanish war ignited in the year 1936 and with this he began to document the atrocities that even included the merciless execution of one of his friends named Federico Gracia Lorica in his novel España en el corazon which means Spain in our heart which means Spain in our hearts.

In a period of 10 years, Neruda left and returned back and forth several times. Among his on and off visits he was declared the Consul of Chile for Mexico and he also won the election as the senator of Chile. He quickly surrounded with controversies as he praised Joseph Stalin for the very first time in Pablo Neruda’s poems such as “Canto a Stalingrado” and “ Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado”.  And later for acknowledging Flugencio Batista and Fidel Castro in other Pablo Neruda’s poems such as “Saludo a Batista”.

According to Pablo Neruda biography books composed by different writers he was always mentioned as politically inclined to leftist. Thus in the year 1945, he finally joined the communist party of Chie but soon in the year 1948 the communist party was banned in Chile and was under siege and being a part of the party there was a search and arrest warrant issued against him. This has compelled him to stay under cover and then flee from the country along with his and settle in Argentina. Finally in the year 1952, when the Chilean government withdrew the ban on the communist party in Chile and abolished the seize with the warrant issued against the poet, he returned to his homeland with his family once again after three years.

Accomplishments

From the age of 13 till the next 21 years of his life the enormous and immense Pablo Neruda’s poems and novels were published that reflected a vast range of his writing styles both in the poems as well as novels. This has also helped raise the ranking of 20th century poetrys. His work continued to be collectively published that initially filled 495 pages in the  year 1951 by later in the year 1968, the book was again republished with more compilation that was divided into two volumes as they covered 3237 pages of the initial book. Both the volumes consisted of Pablo Neruda’s novels as well as poetrys. Pablo Neruda prestigious awards comprises the International peace prize that he received in the year 1950 followed by the Lenin and the Stalin peace prize in the year 1953 and finally the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.  

Death and Investigation

He died on 23rd September 1973, just two years after he received the Nobel-prize when he was in Santiago, Chile. Though the official papers have declared the reason of death as prostate cancer but there have been allegations that he was deliberately poisoned to death. It is reasoned that his death was immediately after Augosto Pinochet, the dictator who came into power. BNeruda was always an open supporter of his deposed predecessor in opposition to Pinochet named Salvador Allender.in 2011, his chauffeur claimed that the writer was treated with an injection by a physician in a clinic after which his health started deteriorating faster. Thus the supreme judge of this case has filed an order to reinvestigate the case. Thus his body was resumed in 2013 for examination but there was no evidence of poisoning reported.

In January 2015, his case was again reopened because an unusual bacteria growth was seen in his bones that indicated that the reports are not completely true and an order for examination of his body by a new forensic team was filed.