AP Spanish - Pablo Neruda - Day Two

Pablo Neruda [1904-1973], whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He wrote this poem in 1936 in Spain where he was a Chilean consul, shortly after the murder of his friend, the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, by Franco's fascists -- the Nationalists -- who actually forced García Lorca to dig his own grave. 

Neruda died on September 23, 1973, about two weeks after the "suicide" of Chile's democratically-elected president, Dr. Salvador Allende, when Pinochet's government overthrew the legitimate Chilean government and brought about a dictatorial regime based on terror and torture. Like Franco, Pinochet was a Nationalist. Neruda, like García Lorca, was considered a 'subversive.' Who do you think History will celebrate, Pinochet or Neruda (horror or beauty)? 

According to the wife of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara who was tortured, his hands broken, and eventually killed by the military at the Estadio de Chile, "As we walked through the back streets towards the cemetery, I heard Neruda's poetry being recited by one person after another in the crowd, verse after verse, defying the menace of the uniforms surrounding us; I saw the workers on a building site, standing to attention with their yellow helmets in their hands... Neruda's verses took on an even greater significance as voice after voice took them up, confronting the visible face of fascism."  

Resumen de la guerra civil española

Explico Algunas Cosas por Pablo Neruda