Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda, born Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto, was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. He became known as a poet at thirteen and wrote in a wide range of styles, including the surrealist and passionate love poems of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924), while also holding diplomatic posts and serving as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. A close advisor to Chile's socialist president Salvador Allende, he served as Chile's ambassador to France under Allende's presidency and read before 70,000 people at Estadio Nacional after accepting his Nobel Prize. He died in September 1973, shortly after the coup d'etat that overthrew Allende's government; though his death was officially attributed to prostate cancer, a 2023 toxicology report confirmed the presence of a toxin in his remains, reopening the question of whether he was poisoned.