Pablo Neruda (pronounced nə-ROO-də; Spanish: [ˈpaβlo neˈɾuða]; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was a Chilean poet, government official, and politician who received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became famous as a poet at age 13 and wrote in many styles, including poems with unusual and imaginative ideas, long stories about history, political statements, a book about his life, and love poems, such as those in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).

Neruda held many government jobs in different countries and worked as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. In 1948, the president of Chile banned communism, and a warrant was issued for Neruda’s arrest. Friends helped him hide for months, and in 1949, he escaped through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. He did not return to Chile for more than three years. Neruda was a close advisor to Chile’s socialist president, Salvador Allende, and served as Chile’s ambassador to France during Allende’s presidency. After accepting his Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Neruda returned to Chile, and Allende invited him to read poetry to 70,000 people at the Estadio Nacional.

In September 1973, Neruda was diagnosed with prostate cancer. That same month, a sudden and illegal takeover of power led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende’s government, and Allende died by suicide. Neruda planned to leave Chile for Mexico in exile. On September 23, the day before he was to leave, Neruda died at the Santa María medical clinic in Santiago, where he had been receiving cancer treatment. The official cause of death was listed as complications from prostate cancer, but the cause and circumstances of his death have been debated and investigated since his death.

In 2011, an investigation began after Manuel Araya, Neruda’s former assistant and driver, claimed Neruda had been murdered at the direction of Pinochet. Araya said Neruda called him from the clinic hours before his death and mentioned that a doctor had injected him in the stomach with an unknown substance. In 2013, Judge Mario Carroza ordered Neruda’s remains to be tested for forensic evidence. Initial results found no evidence of poisoning. However, in 2015, the Chilean government stated it was “clearly possible and highly likely” that Neruda was killed due to the actions of others. In 2017, an international group of 13 experts found no evidence Neruda died of cancer but identified signs of a potentially “laboratory-cultivated bacteria.” In 2023, a toxicology report confirmed the presence of Clostridium botulinum in Neruda’s teeth, suggesting he had been poisoned. In February 2024, a court of appeals reopened the official inquiry into his death.

Neruda is often called the national poet of Chile, and his works have been widely read and admired worldwide. The Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez once said Neruda was “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language,” and the critic Harold Bloom included Neruda among the most important writers in the Western tradition in his book The Western Canon.

Early life

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, known as Pablo Neruda, was born on July 12, 1904, in Parral, Chile. Parral is located in the Linares Province, which is now part of the Maule Region, about 350 kilometers south of Santiago. His father, José del Carmen Reyes Morales, worked for the railway, and his mother, Rosa Neftalí Basoalto Opazo, was a school teacher. She passed away on September 14, two months after Neruda was born. On September 26, he was baptized at the parish of San Jose de Parral. Neruda grew up in Temuco with Rodolfo, a half-brother born after his father married again, and a half-sister named Laura Herminia "Laurita," who was the daughter of his father and Aurelia Tolrà, a woman from Catalonia, Spain. Neruda wrote his first poems during the winter of 1914. He did not believe in any religion.

Literary career

Neruda's father did not support his son's interest in writing and literature. However, others, including Gabriela Mistral, who later won a Nobel Prize and was the head of a local school, encouraged him. On July 18, 1917, when Neruda was 13 years old, he published his first work, an essay titled "Entusiasmo y perseverancia" ("Enthusiasm and Perseverance"), in the local newspaper La Mañana. He signed the essay as Neftalí Reyes. Between 1918 and mid-1920, he published many poems, such as "Mis ojos" ("My eyes"), and essays in local magazines, also using the name Neftalí Reyes. In 1919, he entered a literary contest called Juegos Florales del Maule and won third place for his poem "Comunión ideal" or "Nocturno ideal." By mid-1920, when he began using the pen name Pablo Neruda, he had already published poems, prose, and journalism. His pen name may have been inspired by the Czech poet Jan Neruda or the Moravian violinist Wilma Neruda, whose name appears in a novel by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Something began in Neruda's soul, like a fever or forgotten wings. He wrote the first faint line, which was simple and seemed like nonsense but also held wisdom. He felt as though the heavens had opened.

In 1921, at 16 years old, Neruda moved to Santiago to study French at the Universidad de Chile with the goal of becoming a teacher. However, he soon focused all his time on writing poems. With the help of writer Eduardo Barrios, he met and impressed Don Carlos George Nascimento, a major publisher in Chile. In 1923, his first poetry collection, Crepusculario ("Book of Twilights"), was published by Editorial Nascimento. The next year, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada ("Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair") was released. This collection of love poems was controversial because of its romantic and sensual themes, especially since the author was young. Both works were praised by critics and translated into many languages. A second edition of Veinte poemas was published in 1932. Over time, millions of copies were sold, and it became Neruda's most famous work. More than 100 years after its publication, Veinte Poemas remains the best-selling poetry book in the Spanish language. By age 20, Neruda had gained international recognition as a poet but faced financial difficulties.

In 1926, Neruda published the collection Tentativa del hombre infinito ("Venture of the Infinite Man") and the novel El habitante y su esperanza ("The Inhabitant and His Hope"). In 1927, due to financial struggles, he accepted an honorary consulship in Rangoon, the capital of the British colony of Burma, which was then part of British India. Later, he worked in Colombo (Ceylon), Batavia (Java), and Singapore. In Batavia, he met and married his first wife, a Dutch bank employee named Maruca. During his time in the diplomatic service, Neruda read many poems, experimented with different styles, and wrote the first two volumes of Residencia en la Tierra, which include surrealistic poems.

In 1950, Neruda wrote a famous poem titled "United Fruit Company," which criticized the United Fruit Company, a corporation founded in 1899 that controlled much of Latin America. Neruda, a communist, believed that such corporations exploited Latin American countries and harmed their people. He described the company as corrupt and focused only on profit. In his poem, he wrote about how the innocent citizens of Latin America suffered when companies destroyed their land and lifestyles, bringing cruelty and injustice. He also explained how companies manipulate governments and workers to exploit poor countries.

As a political activist, Neruda's communist views are clear in his poem. He called wealthy corporations "bloodthirsty flies" and compared them to a "dictatorship." He likened the United Fruit Company to well-known businesses like Coca-Cola and Ford Motors to highlight their power over small countries in Latin America. His use of vivid imagery, metaphors, irony, symbolism, and a clever tone helped him express his dislike for corrupt corporations and promote communism. His writing skills in this poem proved why he was named the National Poet of Chile.

Diplomatic and political career

After returning to Chile, Neruda received diplomatic positions in Buenos Aires and later in Barcelona, Spain. He took over as consul in Madrid after Gabriela Mistral, where he became the center of a lively group of writers. He befriended authors such as Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, and the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. His only child, his daughter Malva Marina (Trinidad) Reyes, was born in Madrid in 1934. She was the daughter of Neruda’s first marriage to María Antonia Hagenaar Vogelzang. Reyes struggled with serious health problems, especially hydrocephalus. She died in 1943 at the age of eight. Most of her life was spent with a foster family in the Netherlands after Neruda ignored and abandoned her. Her mother worked to care for her. Half of her life was during the Nazi occupation of Holland, where birth defects were seen as signs of genetic weakness. Reyes was rejected, mocked, and left alone by her father. She died in poverty in war-torn, Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

During this time, Neruda became distant from his wife and began a relationship with Delia del Carril, an older Argentine artist. As Spain’s civil war began, Neruda became deeply involved in politics for the first time. His experiences during the war and its aftermath led him to focus on collective responsibility instead of personal work. Neruda became a strong supporter of communism for the rest of his life. The political views of his friends and Delia del Carril influenced him, but the most important reason was the killing of García Lorca by supporters of dictator Francisco Franco. Neruda supported the Spanish Republic through speeches and writings, including the book España en el corazón (Spain in Our Hearts, 1938). He lost his consul position because of his political activism. In July 1937, he attended the Second International Writers’ Congress in Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid. Many writers, including André Malraux, Ernest Hemingway, and Stephen Spender, were present.

Neruda’s marriage to Vogelzang ended, and he received a divorce in Mexico in 1943. His ex-wife moved to Monte Carlo to avoid the war in Spain and later to the Netherlands with their sick daughter. Neruda never saw her again. After leaving his wife, Neruda lived with Delia del Carril in France. They married in Tetecala, Mexico, in 1943, but his marriage was not recognized by Chilean officials because his divorce from Vogelzang was considered illegal.

After Pedro Aguirre Cerda, whom Neruda supported, became president of Chile in 1938, Neruda was appointed special consul for Spanish emigrants in Paris. There, he led an effort to transport 2,000 Spanish refugees from poor camps in France to Chile on a ship called the Winnipeg. Neruda claimed this was "the noblest mission I have ever undertaken." Some people accuse him of choosing only Communists for emigration, but others say he only selected a few hundred refugees personally. The rest were chosen by a group set up by Juan Negrín, the leader of the Spanish Republican government in exile.

Neruda’s next role was as Consul General in Mexico City from 1940 to 1943. During this time, he married Delia del Carril and learned that his daughter Malva had died in Nazi-occupied Netherlands at the age of eight. In 1940, after an attempt to kill Leon Trotsky failed, Neruda helped the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros get a Chilean visa. Siqueiros had been accused of being involved in the plot. Neruda said he did this at the request of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. This allowed Siqueiros to leave Mexico for Chile, where he lived at Neruda’s home. In return, Siqueiros painted a mural at a school in Chillán for over a year. Some criticized Neruda’s relationship with Siqueiros, but Neruda called the accusations "sensationalist politico-literary harassment."

In 1943, when Neruda returned to Chile, he traveled to Peru and visited Machu Picchu. This experience inspired Alturas de Macchu Picchu, a long poem he completed in 1945. The poem showed his growing interest in ancient American civilizations. He explored this theme further in Canto General (1950). In Alturas, Neruda celebrated the achievements of Machu Picchu but also criticized the slavery that made it possible. In Canto XII, he called on the dead of many centuries to speak through him. Martín Espada, a poet and teacher, praised the work as a masterpiece, saying, "There is no greater political poem."

Encouraged by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Neruda, like many left-leaning intellectuals of his time, admired the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. He did so partly because the Soviet Union helped defeat Nazi Germany and partly because of his idealistic view of Marxist ideas. This is shown in poems like Canto a Stalingrado ("Song to Stalingrad") and Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado ("New Love Song to Stalingrad"). In 1953, Neruda was given the Stalin Peace Prize. After Stalin’s death that year, Neruda wrote a poem honoring him. He also praised Fulgencio Batista and later Fidel Castro. His strong support for Stalin created a conflict with his longtime friend, Mexican poet Octavio Paz, who said, "Neruda became more and more Stalinist, while I became less and less enchanted with Stalin." Their disagreement reached a peak after the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, when they nearly fought in an argument about Stalin. Although Paz still called Neruda "the greatest poet of his generation," he later wrote that reading about Neruda and other Stalinist writers made him feel "the gooseflesh that I get from reading certain passages of the Inferno." He said they began with good intentions but eventually "lost their souls." On July 15, 1945, Neruda read to 100,000 people in Brazil to honor the Communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes.

Neruda praised Vladimir Lenin as the "great genius of this century." In a speech on June 5, 1946, he also honored the late Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin, calling him a "man of noble life" and "a comrade in arms of Lenin and Stalin." Later, Neruda regretted his admiration for the Soviet Union, explaining that "in those days, Stalin seemed to us the conqueror who had crushed Hitler

Hiding and exile, 1948–1952

After giving his "Yo acuso" speech in 1948, Pablo Neruda faced danger and went into hiding. He and his wife were moved secretly from house to house by supporters for 13 months. During this time, Neruda was removed from his position as a senator, and in September 1948, the Communist Party was banned by the government under the Ley de Defensa Permanente de la Democracia, a law critics called the "Accursed Law." This law removed over 26,000 people from voting lists, taking away their right to vote. Neruda later moved to Valdivia in southern Chile and then to Fundo Huishue, a forest area near Huishue Lake. His time in hiding ended in March 1949 when he fled Chile on horseback through the Lilpela Pass in the Andes Mountains to Argentina. He later described his escape in detail during his Nobel Prize speech.

After leaving Chile, Neruda spent three years in exile. In Buenos Aires, he used a passport belonging to his friend Miguel Ángel Asturias, a writer and diplomat, to travel to Europe. Pablo Picasso helped him enter Paris, where Neruda surprised the World Congress of Peace Forces with his unexpected appearance. The Chilean government claimed Neruda had not left the country. During his exile, Neruda traveled widely across Europe, as well as to India, China, Sri Lanka, and the Soviet Union. His trip to Mexico in late 1949 was delayed because of a serious illness called phlebitis. A Chilean singer named Matilde Urrutia was hired to care for him, and they began a relationship that later became a marriage. During his time in exile, Urrutia followed Neruda across countries and arranged meetings when possible. Matilde Urrutia inspired Neruda’s book Los versos del capitán, which he published anonymously in 1952.

While in Mexico, Neruda also wrote Canto General, a long poem describing the history, geography, and natural features of South America, along with his personal experiences. Much of the poem was written during his time in hiding in Chile, and he carried the manuscript with him during his escape on horseback. A month later, the outlawed Communist Party in Chile published another edition of the poem, using a copy Neruda had left behind. In Mexico, Neruda was given honorary citizenship. His stay in 1952 at a villa on the island of Capri, owned by Italian historian Edwin Cerio, was later written about in the novel Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skarmeta, which inspired the film Il Postino (1994).

From Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon:
"Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure brilliance opens between your columns? What ancient night does a man touch with his senses? Loving is a journey with water and with stars, with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour: loving is a clash of lightning-bolts and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey."

Second return to Chile

By 1952, the González Videla government was weak and near the end, hurt by scandals about corruption. The Chilean Socialist Party was choosing Salvador Allende as their candidate for the September 1952 presidential election and wanted Neruda, Chile’s most famous left-wing writer, to help with the campaign. Neruda returned to Chile in August of that year and reunited with Delia del Carril, who had arrived earlier, but their marriage was breaking apart. Del Carril later found out about Neruda’s affair with Matilde Urrutia, and he sent her back to Chile in 1955. She convinced Chilean officials to stop Neruda’s arrest, allowing Urrutia and Neruda to go to Capri, Italy. After uniting with Urrutia, Neruda, aside from traveling abroad and working as Allende’s ambassador to France from 1970 to 1973, spent the rest of his life in Chile.

At this time, Neruda was famous worldwide as a poet, and his books were being translated into many languages around the world. He strongly criticized the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later in the 1960s repeatedly blamed the U.S. for its role in the Vietnam War. However, because he was one of the most respected and outspoken left-wing thinkers of his time, he also faced opposition. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-communist group secretly created and funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, targeted Neruda as a main enemy and tried to damage his reputation. They revived old claims that Neruda had helped in the attack on Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940. This effort became stronger when it was known that Neruda was a candidate for the 1964 Nobel Prize, which was eventually given to Jean-Paul Sartre (who refused it).

In 1966, Neruda was invited to attend an International PEN conference in New York City. Officially, he was not allowed to enter the U.S. because he was a communist, but the conference organizer, playwright Arthur Miller, persuaded the Johnson Administration to give Neruda a visa. Neruda read poems to large crowds and even recorded some poems for the Library of Congress. Miller later said that Neruda’s support for communist ideas from the 1930s was because he felt left out of "rich society." Because many writers from Eastern Bloc countries were present, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes later wrote that the PEN conference marked a "beginning of the end" of the Cold War.

After returning to Chile, Neruda stopped in Peru, where he gave readings to excited crowds in Lima and Arequipa and met President Fernando Belaúnde Terry. However, this visit also caused an unwelcome reaction; because the Peruvian government had criticized Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba, more than 100 Cuban intellectuals wrote a letter in July 1966 accusing Neruda of working with enemies, calling him an example of "tepid, pro-Yankee revisionism" common in Latin America. This situation was especially painful for Neruda because of his earlier strong support for the Cuban revolution, and he never visited Cuba again, even after being invited in 1968.

After Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967, Neruda wrote several articles expressing sadness over the loss of a "great hero." At the same time, he told his friend Aida Figueroa not to cry for Che but for Luis Emilio Recabarren, the father of the Chilean communist movement who promoted a peaceful revolution instead of Che’s violent methods.

Last years and death

In 1970, Neruda was nominated as a candidate for the Chilean presidency. However, he supported Salvador Allende, who later won the election and became Chile's first democratically elected socialist leader in 1970. Soon after, Allende appointed Neruda as Chile's ambassador to France, a position he held from 1971 to 1973, which was his last diplomatic role. During his time in Paris, Neruda helped rework Chile's debt to European and American banks. However, his health worsened shortly after arriving in France. Neruda returned to Chile two-and-a-half years later because of his poor health.

In 1971, Neruda received the Nobel Prize. This decision was not easy for the committee because some members remembered his past support for Stalin's rule. However, Neruda's Swedish translator, Artur Lundkvist, worked to ensure he received the award. In his speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony, Neruda said, "A poet is at the same time a force for solidarity and for solitude." The following year, Neruda was honored with the Golden Wreath Award at the Struga Poetry Evenings.

In 1973, a military takeover led by General Augusto Pinochet occurred. At this time, Neruda was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The coup destroyed Neruda's hopes for Chile. Soon after, when Chilean armed forces searched Neruda's home at Isla Negra, he reportedly said, "Look around – there's only one thing of danger for you here – poetry."

It was originally reported that Neruda died of heart failure on September 23, 1973, at Santiago's Santa María Clinic. However, his wife, Matilde Urrutia, said he was alone in the hospital for five days before his death. He called her because he felt unwell after receiving something. In 2011, Neruda's former driver, Manuel Araya Osorio, claimed Neruda believed Pinochet had ordered a doctor to kill him. He said Neruda had been given an injection in his stomach and died six-and-a-half hours later. Reports from a newspaper supporting Pinochet also mentioned an injection before Neruda's death. An official report from Chile's Interior Ministry in 2015 stated that Neruda was given an injection or something orally at the clinic, which caused his death six-and-a-half hours later. Neruda had planned to travel to Mexico to lead a government in exile that would criticize Pinochet.

Neruda's funeral took place with heavy police presence, and people gathered to protest against Pinochet's new government. His home was broken into, and his papers and books were taken or destroyed.

In 1974, Neruda's memoirs, titled I Confess I Have Lived, were published. The book included updates about his final days and described the death of Salvador Allende during the military attack on the Moneda Palace, which happened 12 days before Neruda's death. Matilde Urrutia later compiled and edited Neruda's memoirs and possibly his final poem, Right Comrade, It's the Hour of the Garden. These actions led to conflicts with Pinochet's government, which tried to reduce Neruda's influence on Chilean culture. Urrutia's own memoir, My Life with Pablo Neruda, was published in 1986 after her death. In 2012, Manuel Araya, Neruda's Communist-Party-appointed driver, wrote a book about Neruda's final days.

Controversy

In June 2013, a judge in Chile ordered an investigation after suggestions that Pablo Neruda, a famous poet, may have been killed by the Pinochet regime because of his political views. Neruda’s driver, Manuel Araya, said he saw Neruda two days before his death and claimed doctors gave him poison as he prepared to leave the country. Araya said he was driving Neruda to buy medicine when military members stopped him, took his car, and arrested him. He later learned of Neruda’s death from Santiago’s Archbishop Raúl Silva Henríquez. In December 2011, Chile’s Communist Party asked Judge Mario Carroza to investigate by exhuming Neruda’s remains. Carroza had been studying deaths linked to Pinochet’s regime from 1973 to 1990. His investigation in 2011–2012 found enough evidence to order the exhumation in April 2013. A lawyer named Eduardo Contreras said experts from countries like India, Switzerland, and the U.S. offered to help test Neruda’s remains for free. The Pablo Neruda Foundation opposed the exhumation, saying Araya’s claims were not believable.

In June 2013, a court ordered an investigation into who might have poisoned Neruda. Police looked into Michael Townley, who was being tried for killing General Carlos Prats in 1974 and ex-Chancellor Orlando Letelier in 1976. The Chilean government said tests in 2015 suggested it was “highly probable” that someone else was responsible for Neruda’s death.

In November 2013, results from a seven-month investigation by a 15-member forensic team were released. Patricio Bustos, head of Chile’s medical legal service, said no chemicals linked to Neruda’s death were found at the time. However, Judge Carroza said he was waiting for results from tests in May 2015, which showed Neruda had an infection from the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, which can be deadly if modified.

In October 2017, a team of 16 international experts, led by Spanish forensic specialist Aurelio Luna, said Neruda was not likely to have been in immediate danger of death when he entered the hospital and that prostate cancer was not the cause of death at the time. They also found something in Neruda’s remains that might be a lab-grown bacterium. Their final results were expected in 2018. His cause of death was officially listed as a heart attack. Scientists who studied his remains in 2013 also said he had prostate cancer when he died.

In 2023, researchers from McMaster University and the University of Copenhagen found the Clostridium botulinum bacteria in Neruda’s bloodstream, though it is unclear if it caused his death. Debi Poinar, a researcher, said if Neruda died of botulism, he would have had symptoms like paralysis or sepsis. The bacteria was mainly found in one of his molars. Some scientists denied claims that Neruda was poisoned, explaining that Clostridium botulinum is often found in food and can be used for medical purposes. John Austin, a Canadian expert, said the presence of the bacteria alone is not harmful, as harm comes from its toxins. He also noted that bacteria in Neruda’s mouth may have grown after his death. Fabrizio Anniballi, another expert, said it was unlikely that an alleged injection caused botulism, as symptoms would not appear so quickly. Debi Poinar said more research was needed to determine if the bacteria in Neruda’s bones and molar came from the same source.

In November 2018, Chile’s lower house voted to rename Santiago’s main airport after Neruda. This decision caused protests from feminist groups, who pointed to a passage in Neruda’s memoirs describing an incident in 1929 where he allegedly raped a woman in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Feminist groups, supported by the #MeToo and anti-femicide movements, argued Neruda should not be honored for this reason. Neruda remains a controversial figure, especially for Chilean feminists.

Legacy

Pablo Neruda owned three homes in Chile. Today, these homes are open to the public as museums: La Chascona in Santiago, La Sebastiana in Valparaíso, and Casa de Isla Negra in Isla Negra, where Neruda and Matilde Urrutia are buried. A statue of Neruda stands on the grounds of the Organization of American States building in Washington, D.C.

Chilean composer Sergio Ortega worked with Neruda on the musical play Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (Splendor and Death of Joaquín Murieta) in 1967. In 1998, Ortega expanded the play into an opera, keeping Neruda’s original text.

Many people and groups have set Neruda’s poems to music, including:

• Leon Schidlowsky: Caupolicán (1958), Carrera (1991), and Lautaro (2009), among others.
• Michael Gielen: Ein Tag tritt hervor (1960–63), a pentaphony.
• Samuel Barber: The Lovers (1971), a cantata.
• Peter Schat: Canto General (1974), a cantata dedicated to Salvador Allende.
• Mikis Theodorakis: Canto General (1975), an oratorio.
• Julia Stilman-Lasansky: Cantata No. 3 (1976).
• Dan Welcher: Abeja Blanca (1978), a piece for mezzo-soprano, English horn, and piano, dedicated to Jan DeGaetani.
• Los Jaivas: Alturas de Macchu Picchu (1981), a rock album.
• Sixpence None the Richer: Puedo escribir (1997), a song on their self-titled album.
• Tobias Picker: Tres Sonetos de Amor (2000) and Cuatro Sonetos de Amor (2014), vocal works.
• Luciana Souza: Neruda (2004), a jazz album featuring music by Federico Mompou.
• Brazilian Girls: Me gusta cuando callas (2005), a song on their self-titled album.
• Morten Lauridsen: Soneto de la noche (2005), a choral song from the song cycle Nocturnes.
• Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs (2005) and Songs of Love and Sorrow (2010).
• Ezequiel Viñao: Sonetos de amor (2012), a song cycle.
• Marco Katz: Las Piedras del cielo (2012), a song cycle for voice and piano.
• Ute Lemper: Forever (2013), an album.

• In Isabel Allende’s first novel, The House of the Spirits (1982), a character named The Poet is based on Neruda.
• Neruda’s 1952 stay in a villa on the island of Capri is described in Antonio Skarmeta’s 1985 novel Ardiente paciencia. This book inspired the 1994 film Il Postino and the 2010 opera of the same name by Daniel Catán.
• Neruda appears as a character in Roberto Bolaño’s 2000 novella Nocturno de Chile.
• In Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the protagonist visits Neruda’s preserved home in Chile during a brief stay.
• In 2008, Roberto Ampuero wrote a novel titled El caso Neruda, in which Neruda is a main character.
• The Dreamer (2010), a children’s book by Pam Muñoz Ryan, is a fictional biography of Neruda. The book uses Neruda’s signature green ink for its text and illustrations.
• In Isabel Allende’s 2019 novel A Long Petal of the Sea, Neruda is mentioned as a historical figure who helped transport people fleeing the Franco regime to Chile.
• Xia Xia’s 2023 children’s poetry book How Many Questions Will the Cat Have? (《一隻貓會有多少問題？》) was inspired by Neruda’s Book of Questions. The poems follow the same titles as Neruda’s work, written in Chinese.

Films about Neruda’s life include Neruda (2016) and Alborada (2021).

The Italian film Il Postino (1994) is a fictional story about a man who delivers mail by bicycle to Neruda, who was living in exile on the island of Procida.

The English film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), written and directed by Anthony Minghella, uses Neruda’s poem The Dead Woman as a key part of the story.

Other films that include Neruda’s work are Mindwalk (1990), Patch Adams (1998),

List of works

• Crepusculario. Santiago, Ediciones Claridad, 1921.
• Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1924.
• Tentativa del hombre infinito. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926.
• Anillos. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926. (Prose poetry by Pablo Neruda and Tomás Lago.)
• El hondero entusiasta. Santiago, Empresa Letras, 1933.
• El habitante y su esperanza. Novel. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1926.
• Residencia en la tierra (1925–1931). Madrid, Ediciones del Árbol, 1935.
• España en el corazón. Hymn to the glories of the people in the war: (1936–1937). Santiago, Ediciones Ercilla, 1937.
• Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado. México, 1943.
• Tercera residencia (1935–1945). Buenos Aires, Losada, 1947.
• Alturas de Macchu Picchu. Ediciones de Libreria Neira, Santiago de Chile, 1948.
• Canto general. México, Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1950.
• Los versos del capitán. 1952.
• Todo el amor. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1953.
• Las uvas y el viento. Santiago, Editorial Nascimento, 1954.
• Odas elementales. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1954.
• Nuevas odas elementales. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1955.
• Tercer libro de las odas. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1957.
• Estravagario. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1958.
• Navegaciones y regresos. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1959. Oda al Gato, original poem in Navegaciones y regresos book.
• Cien sonetos de amor. Santiago, Editorial Universitaria, 1959.
• Canción de gesta. La Habana, Imprenta Nacional de Cuba, 1960.
• Poesías: Las piedras de Chile. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1960. Las Piedras de Pablo Neruda.
• Cantos ceremoniales. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1961.
• Plenos Poderes. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1962.
• Memorial de Isla Negra. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1964. 5 volumes.
• Diez Odas para diez grabados de Roser Bru. Barcelona, El Laberint, 1965.
• Arte de pájaros. Santiago, Ediciones Sociedad de Amigos del Arte Contemporáneo, 1966.
• Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta. Santiago, Zig-Zag, 1967. The work was written with the intention of serving as a libretto for an opera by Sergio Ortega.
• La Barcarola. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1967.
• Las manos del día. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1968.
• Comiendo en Hungría. Editorial Lumen, Barcelona, 1969. (Co-authored with Miguel Ángel Asturias)
• Fin del mundo. Santiago, Edición de la Sociedad de Arte Contemporáneo, 1969. With illustrations by Mario Carreño, Nemesio Antúnez, Pedro Millar, María Martner, Julio Escámez, and Oswaldo Guayasamín.
• Aún. Editorial Nascimento, Santiago, 1969.
• Maremoto. Santiago, Sociedad de Arte Contemporáneo, 1970. With color woodcuts by Carin Oldfelt Hjertonsson.
• La espada encendida. Buenos Aires, Losada, 1970.
• Las piedras del cielo. Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1970.
• Discurso de Estocolmo. Alpignano, Italia, A. Tallone, 1972.
• Geografía infructuosa. Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1972.
• La rosa separada. Éditions du Dragon, París, 1972 with engravings by Enrique Zañartu.
• Incitación al Nixonicidio y alabanza de la revolución chilena. Santiago, Empresa Editora Nacional Quimantú, Santiago, 1972.

• The Heights of Macchu Picchu (bilingual edition). Published by Jonathan Cape Ltd in London and Farrar, Straus, Giroux in New York in 1966. Translated by Nathaniel Tarn with a preface by