Description
Born in Chile in 1904, Pablo Neruda first won recognition as a poet at the age of sixteen. Beginning in the twenties, the Chilean government sent him on a series of consular missions. His active role in radical politics from 1936 on resulted in conflict with the government, expulsion, and exile. He returned to Chile in 1953, enveloped in a cloud of political controversy, but firmly established as one of the two or three leading poets of Latin America. This selection, with facing Spanish texts, covers the period from 1925 through 1960 and includes poems the three series of "Residencia en la tierra", "Canto general", three books of "Odes", "Navegaciones y regresos" and "Estravagario" -- clearly showing the scope of Neruda's writing from the polemical and affirmative to the most surreal, irrational, and hermetic. The penetrating Introduction by Luis Monguió thoroughly discusses Neruda's position in both literature and politics, and Ben Belitt's Foreword explores Neruda's style and poetics. -- From publisher's description.
