“To reside on earth. Selected works”, by Pablo Neruda, multiple translators from Spanish (Chile), edited by Stéphanie Decante, Gallimard, “Quarto”, 1,604 p., €37.
“Room 406. The Pablo Neruda affair”, by Laurie Fachaux-Cygan, L’Atelier, 200 p., €20, digital €14.
In his famous speech delivered in December 1971, in Stockholm, on the occasion of receiving his Nobel Prize for Literature, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) invites his audience to a ” journey (…) poles apart “, to the “southern tip” of Chile, of which he compares the “landscapes” and the “loneliness” to those of the far Scandinavian North.
The writer was at the height of his glory: read and celebrated from one pole to the other, a great traveler by necessity and by inclination, he was Chilean ambassador to France, appointed by Salvador Allende (1908-1973), to whom he rallied to the presidential elections of 1970, won by the socialist politician with the support of left-wing parties, united under the banner of Popular Unity. A little later in this same speech, he is proud to have “participated in the current transformation” of his country and defines poetry as a ” action (…) in which solitude and solidarity enter in equal parts, (…) the intimacy of man and the secret revelation of nature”.
This conception of a poetic act anchored in the earth, with humanity and for humanity, is obviously due to his particular trajectory as a man and writer, born in the early years of the 20th century.e century, witness to the Spanish Civil War, communist activist and senator, in exile during the presidency of Gabriel Gonzalez Videla (1946-1952). Barely two years after his Nobel Prize, however, this history and this political fight, which he made the heart of several of his works, caught up with him. On September 23, 1973, he died in Santiago in troubled circumstances, when he seemed ready to return to exile with his wife, the singer Matilde Urrutia (1912-1985). The junta led by General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) came to power twelve days earlier.
A commitment and an inspiration
This extraordinary crossing of the century, where history, man and work are intimately intertwined, is the common thread of the very beautiful poetic anthology (enhanced by a few stories and essays) which appears under the direction of Stéphanie Decante, reside on the earth. By presenting in a single stroke all the variants and all the themes of Pablo Neruda’s poetry, this volume gives a striking impression of coherence – despite evolving formal research and successive eras. In this, it underlines the constancy of commitment and inspiration.
You have 68.46% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.