Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems (Edición bilingüe) (Paperback)

by Pablo Neruda (Author), Anthony Kerrigan (Translator) "Cuerpo de mujer, blancas colinas, muslos blancos, te pareces al mundo en tu actitud de entrega..." (more)
Key Phrases: por las calles, las hojas, tus ojos, Isla Negra, Macchu Picchu, Rapa Nui (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In his long life as a poet, Pablo Neruda succeeded in becoming what many poets have aspired to but never achieved: a public voice, a voice not just for the people of his country but for his entire continent. Widely translated, he probably reached more readers than any poet in history; justly so, for, as he often said, his "poet's obligation" was to become a voice for all those who had no voice, an aspiration that stemmed from his long-time commitment to the communist faith. Born in 1904 in the rainy south of Chile, he enjoyed from an early age the luck of attention. One of his first books, Twenty Love Poems, became a bible for lovers in the Spanish language, and confirmed him in his poet's vocation. At the same time he pursued a lifelong career as a diplomat, serving in a series of consular posts in the Far East and Europe. In 1971, while serving as Chilean ambassador to France, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In a famous essay, "On Impure Poetry," Neruda calls for "a poetry as impure as old clothes, as a body with its foodstains and its shame, with wrinkles, observations, dreams, wakefulness, prophesies, declarations of love and hate, stupidities, shocks, idylls, political beliefs, negations, doubts, affirmations, and taxes."

Language Notes
Text: English, Spanish (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; Bilingual edition (September 10, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395544181
• ISBN-13: 978-0395544181
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #65,142 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UN LIBRO DE COLECCION, October 24, 2002

By	"rdfley" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews

A MUST HAVE. Es sin duda un libro que vas a cuidar y conservar con mucho cariño. La recoleccion de poemas es brillante, exquisita, de primera. Quien no ha leido a Neruda? Lo bello del libro es que ofrece los poemas en el idioma que fueron escritos y en Ingles. La traduccion al ingles es excelente. No hay mucho que hablar sobre este libro, los poemas son una obra de arte y que esten a la vez traducidos al Ingles ya es mas que un buen regalo. No pienses dos veces en obtenerlo.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars i carry this book with me everywhere., December 21, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Or-E-Gone USA) - See all my reviews

pablo neruda is amazing and this book is a perfect example of his genius. Whether you have read neruda before or not, the book gives a sample of all of his best poems. also, even if you know only basic spanish, this bilingual edition is great. personally his love poems are my favorite, but his poems about spain and chile are amazing as well. like i said, i take this book with me everywhere and i keep rereading it, again and again. its definatly a 10.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Neruda, the greatest, July 24, 2002

By	José Ignacio Silva (Santiago, Región Metropolitana Chile) - See all my reviews

Neruda is truly the greatest literary voice of Chile in its entire history, and one of the biggest of latin american poetry of all the XX century, place which shares with mexican Octavio Paz.
Neruda has been labeled in many ways, "poet of love", "politic poet", but he was beyond all this shallow aliases, he was a true poet in all the sense of the word.
This volume is a good (but not quite perfect) aproximation to the works of the poet if Isla Negra, it lacks some poems, so the selection could have been better, and also it has translation mistakes (like not translating "calle maruri" in "Maruri street". This book is an entrance to the poetry of Neruda, but not the definite word.