Pablo Neruda
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The first authoritative biography of the most enduring poet of the twentieth century
'This is a magnificent biography' HAROLD PINTER
'Feinstein's biography is fuelled by an infectious enthusiasm for the poems: this is its greatest strength ... it is crammed with adventure stories, narrow scrapes, passionate encounters' GUARDIAN
'A magnificently researched work ... Feinstein brilliantly elucidates the main driving forces behind Neruda's life and work' INDEPENDENT
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Poet and politician, Pablo Neruda continues to cast a long shadow across the world fifty years after his death in the wake of the 1973 Chilean coup.
From the lyricism of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and the melancholy of Residence on Earth to the direct simplicity of the Elemental Odes and the epic grandeur of the Canto General, Neruda's range was vast. Few Nobel laureates have enjoyed such enduring popularity.
Neruda was a complicated man, both politically and emotionally. In this first authoritative biography, Adam Feinstein draws on revealing interviews with his closest friends, acquaintances and surviving relatives, as well as newly discovered documents. He follows Neruda's life from a sickly childhood in Chile to political engagement and literary fame, until his death in 1973, within days of the death of Salvador Allende in the coup that brought Pinochet to power.
This acclaimed biography, now updated with an afterword about the recent exhumation of Neruda's remains, tells the full story of an iconic twentieth-century figure for the first time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This year marks the centennial of Nobel laureate Neruda's birth. Neruda, who died in 1973, was considered among the greatest poets of the past century and a man full of passions and contradictions who, despite his efforts to sing his political views, is also remembered as a poet of love. This biography follows Neruda from his precocious poetic beginnings to his wanderings as a diplomat in Asia, Argentina, France, Spain and Mexico. Journalist and translator Feinstein recounts how Neruda saved the lives of many republicans during the Spanish Civil War and how his activism in Chile's Communist Party forced him into exile in 1948. Neruda crossed the Andes to travel yet more through Europe and America, where he befriended such famous men as Lorca and Picasso. Back in Chile in 1952, after writing many great books, Neruda ran for the presidency and his commitment to social justice strengthened. But Feinstein also examines the other constant in the poet's life, love,detailing his three marriages and innumerable love affairs, including plenty of bittersweet stories in an attempt to clarify the often fantastic versions of Neruda's own memories. Feinstein undoubtedly researched every existent source and found new ones, and the result is a detailed and accurate biography. His dry writing fails to bring the poet alive on the page, but this is a necessary book, with many beautiful photos.
