Pablo Neruda was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile. His mother was a schoolteacher who died of tuberculosis when Neruda was an infant, and after he moved to Temuco with his father, a railroad worker. Neruda attended a boys' school until 1920. He began to write poetry as a teenager, and in 1924 he published Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desperada, which quickly became a best seller.
             Pablo Neruda was appointed to the Chilean consul, and between 1927 and 1944 he held posts in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Spain. While in Argentina, he met Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca, who was later killed by the conservative, right wing Spanish Nationalists at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
             In 1930, Neruda married Maria Antonieta Hagenaar, but they separated in 1936. Later he lived with Delia del Carril, an Argentine painter, who he married in 1943. The marriage went unrecognized in Chile for twelve years, and in 1955 the two separated. In 1966, Neruda married Matilde Urrutia, a Chilean singer who inspired much of his poetry.
             In 1943 Pablo Neruda joined the Communist party of Chile and served in the senate from 1945 to 1948. When the communist party was outlawed and the government was taken over by right-wing extremists, he fled to Mexico. There he wrote Canto General, a collection of 340 poems and other works. This was an epic poem which portrayed Spanish America and its history from a Marxist point of view. Before returning to Chile in 1952, Neruda traveled to the USSR, Europe, China, and Mexico. Upon returning to Chile after the victory of the anti-Videla forces and the order to arrest leftist rescinded, he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize and, in 1953 he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1970, Pablo Neruda was the Communist candidate for President, and was the Chilean ambassador to France from 1970 to 1972.
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