Pablo Neruda, Poet and Man
On July 12, one hundred and seven years ago, a boy was born in the small Chilean town of Parral some 350 km south of the capital, Santiago. His father was a small time railway employee and his mother, who was a teacher who died very soon after his birth. This boy, Ricardo Eliezer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, was to become one of the twentieth century’s most famous and well loved poets, Pablo Neruda. Neruda was lifelong communist. He became one during his stint in Spain during the Civil War and clung to his ideology despite the infamous revelations of later years. This led to many estrangements, most famously from his longtime friend, Octavio Paz, another legendary poet, who could not stomach his admiration for Stalin. While today it is easily possible to see Stalin for the monster he undoubtedly was, it was not so plain to people in the days of the Second World War when Stalin and communist Russia stood basically alone against the all conquering Germans. The British had drawn back to their...