Captain's Verses: Love Poems

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was the pen name of Ricardo Eliécer Neftálí Reyes Basoalto, born in Parral, Chile. He published Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) in 1924, at nineteen. His three-volume Residencia en la tierra appeared between 1933 and 1947, and the epic Canto General was published in 1950. Neruda served as a Chilean diplomat, was elected to the Senate in 1945, and belonged to the Communist Party of Chile. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.