by Pablo Neruda
1968 JULY 12: Neruda celebrates his sixty-fourth birthday in Isla Negra. He plans to write his memoirs based on the series of articles published by the journal O Cruzeiro Internacional in 1962.
1968 AUGUST 22: Neruda travels to Montevideo with Matilde. They continue to Brazil. In São Paolo, Neruda inaugurates a monument to Federico García Lorca. Then he visits Salvador, Congonhas, Petrópolis, Ouro Prêto, and Brasília, where he meets the city’s founder, architect Oscar Niemeyer.
1968 OCTOBER: From Brazil they travel on to Colombia, where Neruda and Miguel Ángel Asturias form part of the jury for the First Festival of University Theater in Manizales.
1968 NOVEMBER: Losada, in Buenos Aires, publishes Las manos del día (The Hands of the Day).
1968 Neruda tells his editor Gonzalo Losada of his plan to build Cantalao, a place where writers and artists can stay to work, on a piece of land he has purchased near Isla Negra.
12. CRUEL, BELOVED HOMELAND
1969 JANUARY AND FEBRUARY: Neruda participates in the electoral campaign for the Communist Party candidates in the March parliamentary elections.
1969 JULY: Nascimento, in Santiago, publishes Aún (Still).
1969 AUGUST: The Society for Contemporary Art in Santiago publishes Fin de mundo (End of the World) in an edition illustrated by Mario Carreño, Nemesio Antúnez, Pedro Millar, María Martner, Julio Escámez, and Oswaldo Guayasamín.
1969 AUGUST 19: The Chilean National Library in Santiago inaugurates a bibliographic exhibition of the work of Pablo Neruda.
1969 AUGUST 21: The Catholic University of Chile awards Neruda a doctor scientiae et honoris causa.
1969 SEPTEMBER 30: The Communist Party declares Neruda its candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in the 1970 elections. The campaign slogan will be “For Popular Unity.”
1969 OCTOBER: Neruda makes a cross-country campaign trip from Arica to Lota. In December a second trip will take him to Temuco and Punta Arenas. At the beginning of 1970, a mass of people will greet him in the port of Valparaíso.
1970 JANUARY: Neruda relinquishes his candidacy to support Salvador Allende, who will become the only left-wing candidate.
1970 The Santiago publisher Lord Cochrane releases a deluxe edition of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair illustrated with watercolors by Mario Toral.
1970 APRIL: Neruda leaves for Europe with Matilde. In Moscow he participates in the ceremonies surrounding the hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth. He will later travel to the Westminster Poetry Festival in London.
1970 JUNE 23: In Cannes, Neruda and Matilde board a ship bound for the Americas. They pass through Barcelona on the twenty-fourth and spend their brief time there with Gabriel García Márquez.
1970 EARLY JULY: Neruda and Matilde stop in Venezuela, where Neruda participates in the Third Latin American Congress of Writers in Caracas. They continue on to Peru, where the poet will give a recital dedicated to the victims of the May 31 earthquake and will meet with President Velasco Alvarado.
1970 MID-JULY: Neruda and Matilde return to Chile. Neruda participates actively in the presidential campaign of Salvador Allende, who will win the election on September 4.
1970 Losada, in Buenos Aires, publishes La espada encendida (The Sword Aflame) and Las piedras del cielo (The Stones of the Sky).
1970 The Society for Contemporary Art in Santiago publishes Maremoto (Tsunami), illustrated with color engravings by Karin Oldfelt.
1971 JANUARY: Neruda travels to Easter Island, where he will remain for around ten days filming chapters of the TV series Historia y geografía de Pablo Neruda (History and Geography of Pablo Neruda), directed by Hugo Arévalo, for the Catholic University’s Channel 13. This trip will lead to the book La rosa separada (The Separated Rose), which will be published in 1972.
1971 JANUARY 21: The Chilean Congress approves Neruda’s nomination as ambassador to France.
1971 MARCH 20: Neruda and Matilde arrive in Paris. On the twenty-sixth, he presents his credentials to President Georges Pompidou.
1971 JULY 12: Neruda celebrates his sixty-seventh birthday.
1971 SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER: Neruda searches for a quiet place outside the city to write. In Condé-sur-Iton, in Normandy, an hour and a half from Paris, he finds an old house that had once been attached to a noble estate.
1971 OCTOBER 21: From the Swedish ambassador in Paris, Gunnar Hägglö, Neruda receives official notification that he has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy’s text describes Neruda as “the poet of violated humanity,” noting that he himself has been repeatedly persecuted and that the community of the oppressed from across the world found its place in his work.
1971 LATE OCTOBER: The poet undergoes an operation at Cochin Hospital in Paris. Dr. Raúl Bulnes, a friend of Neruda’s and his neighbor in Isla Negra, travels from Chile to be present during the procedure. Afterward, Neruda goes to relax in the house he has purchased, which he christens “La Manquel.”
1971 EARLY DECEMBER: Neruda and Matilde travel to Stockholm. The Nobel Prize ceremony takes place on the tenth. At the official dinner, Neruda gives a brief speech in the name of this year’s winners, and follows it with his acceptance speech.
1971 DECEMBER 31: Neruda celebrates New Year’s with a group of friends at La Manquel.
1972 JANUARY: Neruda grants Mikis Theodorakis permission to set his Canto general to music. The oratorio Canto general will be finished after the poet’s death, and will debut in Greece in 1974.
1972 FEBRUARY: Neruda participates in the meetings of the Chilean delegation with the Paris Club to renegotiate the country’s external debt.
1972 APRIL 10: Neruda gives the opening address for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the P.E.N. club in New York.
1972 APRIL 25: Neruda and Matilde travel to Moscow, where Neruda will be admitted to a clinic between April 26 and May 5.
1972 MAY: Losada in Buenos Aires publishes Geografía infructuosa (Fruitless Geography).
1972 MID-JUNE: Neruda travels to London to participate in the International Poetry Festival. He is reunited with Octavio Paz, and the two men reconcile.
1972 JUNE 28: Neruda returns to Paris, where he is hospitalized for several days.
1972 JULY 12: Neruda celebrates his sixty-eighth birthday with a dinner at the embassy. He invites a group of friends to La Manquel. Participants in the festivities include Julio Cortázar and his partner, Ugnė Karvelis, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Edwards, Poli Délano, and the Chilean Foreign Minister, Clodomiro Almeyda.
1972 MID-JULY: Neruda receives palliative surgery.
1972 JULY: Laura Reyes, the poet’s sister, arrives in Paris with Homero Arce, a poet whose aid Neruda has requested in the preparation of his memoirs.
1972 OCTOBER 26: Neruda meets with French President Georges Pompidou.
1972 OCTOBER 28: Neruda is elected to a four-year term as member of UNESCO’s Advisory Board.
1972 NOVEMBER 20: Neruda and Matilde return to Chile by plane.
1972 DECEMBER 5: A ceremony takes place in the National Stadium in Santiago to celebrate the poet’s winning the Nobel Prize. General Carlos Prats, Vice President of the Republic, attends in place of President Allende, who is on an overseas tour.
1972 DECEMBER 31: Neruda sees in the New Year with friends at La Sebastiana, his house in Valparaíso.
1973 The Allende government agrees, through the Corporation for Urban Improvement, to carry out the Cantalao project, the poet’s last dream: a residence close to the sea where writers and artists can work. The architects Raúl Bules, Carlos Martner, and Virginia Plubins are responsible for the design, with Neruda’s active participation.
1973 FEBRUARY 2: President Salvador Allende and his wife arrive in Isla Negra to visit Neruda. Also in attendance is a writer from the Communist Party, Luis Corvalán, and the senator Volodia Teitelboim. On this occasion, Neruda renounces his French ambassadorship.
1973 FEBRUARY 16: Quimantú, in Santia
go, publishes Incitación al Nixonicidio y alabanza de la revolución chilena (Incitation to Nixonicide and Praise of the Chilean Revolution) in an edition of seventy thousand copies.
1973 Despite his fragile health, Neruda continues writing. He is working on the end of his memoirs and on seven volumes of poetry. He intends to publish them to celebrate his seventieth birthday, on July 12, 1974.
1973 EARLY APRIL: At the Hotel Miramar in Viña del Mar, where the poet is recovering after a round of cobalt radiation therapy, he dictates to the journalist Luis Alberto Mansilla an homage to Pablo Picasso, who died on April 8.
1973 MID-APRIL: Matilde travels to Paris to arrange for the transport of possessions they have left at the embassy and to put La Manquel up for sale.
1973 JULY 12: Neruda celebrates his sixty-ninth birthday in Isla Negra with a small group of friends he receives from his bed.
1973 AUGUST 30: Again, Luis Alberto Mansilla visits. The poet asks him to come to Isla Negra so he can dictate a contribution to the ninetieth-birthday celebrations of Dr. Alejandro Lipschutz.
1973 SEPTEMBER 11: The poet and Matilde learn from radio and television broadcasts of the military coup, the bombardment of La Moneda Palace, and the death of President Allende.
1973 SEPTEMBER 14: Neruda dictates a text to Matilde for the close of his memoirs. The house on Isla Negra is raided by a military patrol.
1973 SEPTEMBER 19: The poet’s health worsens. He is transferred to Santiago by ambulance in the company of Matilde. He is admitted with a fever to the Clínica Santa María.
1973 SEPTEMBER 23: The poet dies at 10:30 p.m. The vigil is held at his house La Chascona, which is in a ruinous state after numerous acts of vandalism.
1973 SEPTEMBER 25: Pablo Neruda is buried in Santiago’s Cementerio General. Despite the intimidating military presence, a mass of people spontaneously joins the funeral procession, and the poet’s burial becomes the first manifestation of popular rejection of the military government.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Ady, Endre
Aga Khan
Aguirre, Margarita
Aguirre, Sócrates
Aguirre Cerda, Pedro
Ai Ch’ing
Alarcón, Asterio
Alba, Duke and Duchess of
Alberti, Rafael
Alderete (journalist)
Alegría, Ciro
Alegría, Fernando
Aleixandre, Vicente
Alekseevich, Pyotr (Peter the Great)
Alessandri Palma, Arturo
Alexandrov, Grigory
Alicattas (Naples friends)
Allende, Salvador
Alone (Hernán Díaz Arrieta)
Alonso, Amado
Altolaguirre, Manuel
Altolaguirre, Paloma
Alvarez del Vayo, Julio
Amado, Jorge
Amado, Zelia
Andreyev, Leonid
Antúnez, Nemesio
Aparicio, Antonio
Apollinaire, Guillaume
Aragon, Elsa, see Triolet, Elsa
Aragon, Louis
Aramburu, Pedro Eugenio
Aráoz Alfaro, Rodolfo
Arce, Homero
Arciniegas, Germán
Arenales, Angélica
Argensola, Bartolomé Leonardo de
Argensola, Lupercio Leonardo de
Arguijo, Juan del
Arrau, Claudio
Artsybashev, Mikhail
Asterio (watchmaker)
Asturias, Miguel Angel
Auden, W. H.
Azev (spy)
Azócar, Rubén
Baera (professor in India)
Balmaceda, José Manuel
Barba Jacob, Porfirio
Barquero, Efraín
Bartolomé (eccentric in Valparaíso)
Basoalto de Reyes, Rosa
Baudelaire, Charles
Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo
Beebe, Charles William
Beecham, Thomas
Belaúnde, Fernando
Bellay, Guillaume du
Bellet, Jorge
Bello, Andrés
Beniuc, Mihai
Bennett, Arnold
Berceo, Gonzalo de
Bergamín, José
Beria, Lavrenti
Berling, Gösta
Bertaux (chief of police in France)
Betancourt, Rómulo
Beyle, Marie-Henri (“Stendhal”)
Bhrampy (houseboy)
Bianchi, Victor
Blest Gana
Bliss, Josie
Bloch, Jean-Richard
Blow, Joe
Blum, Léon
Bolívar, Simón
Borejsza, Jerzy
Boscán, Juan
Bose, Subhas Chandra
Botana, Natalio
Boureanu, Radu
Bowers, Claude
Braganza, Duchess of
Brandt, Willy
Brecht, Bertolt
Brik, Lili
Brunet, Marta
Buddha
Buffalo Bill
Bulnes, Raúl
Byron, George Gordon (“Lord”)
Caballero, José
Cabezón, Isaías
Calcutta Strangler (wrestler)
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
Camacho Ramírez, Arturo
Candia Marverde, Trinidad
Capablanca, José Raúl
Cárdenas, Lázaro
Carlos (commandant), see Vidali, Vittorio
Caro, Rodrigo
Carol (Romanian monarch)
Carpentier, Alejo
Carrera, José Miguel
Carril, Delia del (wife)
Carroll, Lewis
Carvajal, Armando
Casas, Bartolomé de las
Castro, Fidel
Catherine (empress of Russia)
Cavalcanti, Guido
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand
Cerio, Edwin
Cernuda, Luis
Cervantes, Miguel de
Chambers, Whittaker
Chamisso, Adelbert von
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Chekhov, Anton
Chiang Kai-shek
Chou En-lai
Christ
Churchill, Winston
Chu Teh
Cifuentes Sepúlveda, Joaquín
Codovilla, Victorio
Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle
Columbus, Christopher
Condon (shipping magnate)
Condon, Alfredo
Condon, Carmen
Confucius
Corniglion-Molinier (aviator)
Cortázar, Julio
Cortés, Hernán
Corvalán, Luis
Cotapos, Acario
Crevel, René
Cruchaga Tocornal, Miguel
Crusoe, Robinson
Cunard, Lady Emerald
Cunard, Nancy
D’Annunzio, Gabriele
Dante Alighieri
Darío, Rubén
Debray, Régis
de Gaulle, Charles
Deglané, Bobby
Demaría, Alfredo
Desnoes, Edmundo
Desnos, Robert
Díaz Arrieta, Hernán (“Alone”)
Díaz Casanueva, Humberto
Díaz Pastor, Fulgencio
Diego, Gerardo
Donoso, José
Dostoevsky, Feodor
Drda, Jan
Drieu La Rochelle, Pierre
Ducasse, Isidore (“Lautréamont”)
Durruti, Buenaventura
Echelarte (family)
Edwards, Jorge
Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor)
Egaña, Juan
Ehrenburg, Ilya
Ehre
nburg, Lyuba
Einstein, Albert
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich
El Greco, see Theotokópoulos, Doménikos
Eliot, T. S.
Eluard, Dominique
Eluard, Paul
Emar, Juan (Pilo Yáñez)
Ercilla, Alonso de
Escobar (chauffeur)
Escobar, Zoilo
Espinosa, Pedro de
Fadeyev, Alexander
Fantômas (fictional character)
Fauré, Gabriel
Fedin, Konstantin
Felipe, León
Fernández, Joaquín
Fernández Retamar, Roberto
Fierro, Martín (fictional character)
Figueroa, Inés
Fonseca, Ricardo
Foppens, Jean François
Franck, César
Franco, Francisco
Fraser, G. S.
Frei, Eduardo
Fuentes, Carlos
Gable, Clark
Gallegos, Rómulo
Gandhi, Mahatma
Gandulfo, Juan
García Lorca, Federico
García Lorca, Francisco
García Márquez, Gabriel
García Rico (bookseller)
Garcilaso de la Vega
Garfias, Pedro
Gascar, Alice
Gasperi, Alcide De
Gattai, Zelia, see Amado, Zelia
Gauguin, Paul
Gautama, Siddhārtha, see Buddha
Gide, André
Girondo, Oliverio
Giroux, Françoise
Goebbels, Joseph
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Gómez, Juan Vicente
Gómez de la Serna, Ramón
Gómez Rojas, Domingo
Góngora, Luis de
González, Galo
González Cruchaga, Carlos (bishop)
González Tuñón, Amparo
González Tuñón, Raúl
González Vera, José Santos
González Videla, Gabriel
Goya, Francisco de
Gris, Juan
Guevara, Alvaro (“Chile”)
Guevara, Ernesto (“Che”)
Guillén, Jorge
Güiraldes, Ricardo
Gustaf VI (king)
Gutiérrez, Joaquín
Guttuso, Renato
Hagenaar, María Antonieta
Hauser, Kaspar