Nobel Prize Recipient. Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet and politician, received worldwide recognition after receiving the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. He received this award "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams." A prolific poet of 28 published collections, his poems were written in his native language of Spanish. Born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, his father was a railway employee and his mother a teacher, who died shortly after his birth but his father remarried years later. Although his father opposed his interest in writing and literature, he was submitting poems to be published in the local newspaper at age thirteen, employed as a journalist and writer by the age of sixteen and the next year, relocated to Santiago to study at the University of Chile and to devote himself to writing poetry. He had been encouraged by the principal of the Temuco Girls' School, Gabrield Mistral, who would be the 1945 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient for her poetry. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of "Pablo Neruda," which was made his legal name in 1946. His first collection of poems was "Crepusculario" or "Twilight" in 1923. The following year after a failed love affair, he wrote "Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada," or "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair," which is one of his best-known and most translated works. Although his writings were not a solid income, three more books appeared in quick succession: in 1926 "Tentativa del hombre infinito" or "Attempt of the Infinite Man" and "Anillos" or "Rings" in collaboration with Tomás Lago; and in 1933 "El hondero entusiasta" or "The Enthusiastic Slingshooter." Between 1927 and 1935, the government made him charge of a number of unsalaried honorary consulships, which gave him the opportunity to learn other cultures. He traveled to Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, before in 1933 to Buenos Aires and in 1934 to Spain, staying in Barcelona then Madrid. During this period, he had a literary breakthrough, the two-volume collection of esoteric surrealistic poems, "Residencia en la tierra" or "Resident on Earth" was published in 1933. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, many of his political-minded colleagues fought. He traveled in and out of Spain to gather needed funding, supporting the Republicans. The execution of Spanish poet García Lorca had caused him to join the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his collection of poems "Espaˆa en el Coraz˜n" or "Spain in My Heart" in 1937, which had a strong patriotic impact since written during the civil war. The same year he returned to Chile, giving lectures and poetry readings while defending Republican Spain and Chile's new leftist government. His poetry was impacted by these political events. In 1939, he was appointed Consul for the Spanish exiles, residing in Paris, and, shortly afterwards, Consul General in Mexico, where he rewrote his "Canto General de Chile," or "General Song of Chile," transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent. This work, entitled "Canto General" or the "General Song," which was published in Mexico, and also underground in Chile, consists of a collection of approximately 250 poems. Shortly after its publication, "Canto General" was translated into ten languages. As an international hero, he had returned to Chile in 1943, was elected a senator in 1945, joining the Communist Party. Originally supporting leftist candidate Gabriel González Videla in 1946, he published a letter in protest against the President, who was using right-winged policies against striking miners in 1947. A warrant for his arrest was issued, hence he lived underground in his own country until February of 1948 when he escaped over the Andes Mountains on horseback at night. After living in different European countries, he returned home in 1952 and his exile diary "Residencia cycle, Tercera residencia, 1935–45 " or "Third Residence" was published in 1954. His "Obras Completas," which was constantly republished, comprised 459 pages in 1951; in 1962 the number of pages was 1,925, and in 1968 it amounted to 3,237, in two volumes. He married three times: first to a native of the Dutch West Indies, which ended in divorce in 1942; an Argentinian, separating about 1950, but legally divorce in 1966; and for the rest of his life, a Chilean, who he had known for years and was the subject of many of his love poems. He and his first wife had a daughter, who died in 1943 at age nine from complications of a serious birth defect, which left her totally dependent. Chile has many sites that honor him, along with the Organization of American States building in Washington, D.C having his bust on exhibit. His memoirs "I Confess I Have Lived" were published in English in 1977.