The Heights of Macchu Picchu: A Bilingual Edition (English and Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Pablo Neruda (Author), Nathaniel Tarn (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1967

The Heights of Macchu Picchu is the finest and most famous of Neruda's longer poems and provides the key to his earlier work. It was inspired by his journey to Macchu Picchu, the Peruvian Inca city high in the Andes. Neruda's journey takes on all the symbolic qualities of a personal "venture into the interior" as the poem progresses, exploring both the roots of the poet's identity and the history of Latin America. This translation has been rendered by the distinquished poet Nathaniel Tarn and is presented in a bilingual edition, with the Spanish and English texts on facing pages.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Neruda's] artistic work stands as a monument to a soul in perpetual motion." --Galo Rene Perez

"Not since Whitman has a poet of genius embraced a whole continent, as Neruda has, or spoken so directly to non-poets among his readers." --Selden Rodman

About the Author

Pablo Neruda (1904-73), one of the renowned poets of the twentieth century, was born in Parral, Chile. He shared the World Peace Prize with Paul Robeson and Pablo Picasso in 1950, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 1, 1967)
• Language: English, Spanish
• ISBN-10: 0374506485
• ISBN-13: 978-0374506483
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pablo Neruda is regarded as the greatest Latin American poet of the 20th century. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, his breadth of vision and wide range of themes are extraordinary, and his work continues to inspire new generations of writers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My most beloved poem, January 22, 2001

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heights of Macchu Picchu: A Bilingual Edition (English and Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Pablo Neruda must have written a thousand gorgeous and soul-shaking poems on everything from socks to multinational corporations, but in my (limited) experience, this is his most amazing work. He threads together a wide scope of metaphors-- corn, gloves, roses, lightning, streams, autobuses--as he searches through life for meaning and truth. Sounds like a worn-out, pretentious topic? Think again...Neruda doesn't indulge in philosophical navel-gazing, but delves into the most earthy, mundane, yet painful details of life in his quest. He encounters not a simple answer but the revelation of past tragedy, and a role for himself in bringing about the truth of justice. The poem's beauty may not hit like lightning at first--it must be absorbed bit by bit.

Although I must have read Poem 10 (Antigua America, novia sumergida) fifty times, it always sends chills down my spine and sends me thousands of feet high into the Andes. The Heights of Macchu Picchu has comforted me when I felt lonely, helped me write my college essays, and helped me see my future plans as worthwhile instead of idealistic mush. Anyone concerned with the history of Latin America, social justice, nature, or the works of Neruda should read this poem.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars whuzzup?, April 27, 2000

By 

Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Heights of Macchu Picchu: A Bilingual Edition (English and Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

What is the deal here? One of the great works by one of the great poets of the modern era and there is one review here? Neruda is to poetry what Marquez is to fiction. Superb insight, irony, metaphor, symbolism, etc. etc. combined with mastery of language (a universal language that does not depend upon a translator's skill). By God, if anyone stumbles across this title by mistake (as apparently that's the only way it's going to make itself known) BUY THIS BOOK! It will change the way you read poetry. Is Neruda out of fashion? That's like saying Voltaire or Dostoevsky are out of fashion. If you love literature, shell out the money for this volume or go to your local library and hope they have it. All you Bukowski lovers and avante-garde wannabe's. This is the father of your sect. He had more command of imagery in the tip of his finger than any beat poet or other poseur that's come along in the past 50 years.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poem of immense beauty and power, November 5, 2000

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Heights of Macchu Picchu: A Bilingual Edition (English and Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

When I first read Nathaniel Tarn's translation of Pablo Neruda's great poem "The Heights of Macchu Picchu," I was literally stunned. My immediate thoughts were two: incredulity that I had never encountered this masterpiece before, and an overwhelming desire to share it with as many people as I could.

Such is the power of this book. The poem, inspired by the great Chilean poet's visit to the ancient, abandoned city of Macchu Picchu, is presented in a bilingual format; Neruda's Spanish original faces Tarn's English on each two-page spread.

"The Heights of Macchu Picchu" contains lines of poetic language that are both beautiful and thought-provoking. But equally intrinsic to this great work is the author's compassion for the human condition--a compassion which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. Neruda's passionate addresses to the men and women who shed their blood and their tears in the construction of this ancient stone city nearly had me in tears myself.

This is one of those remarkable poems which is pregnant with the fire of prophecy; it reads like a sacred text for the modern age. Neruda's miniature epic is, I believe, one of those works which will abide as a monument of global literature. It is a gift for the entire human family.