An essential, boundless poet, full of strength and passion. Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes (1904-1973) or Pablo Neruda –a name he adopted in homage to the Czech poet Jan Neruda
was born in the Chilean town of Parral. His mother, Rosa Basoalto, died one month after his birth; his father, a railway worker, moved two years later to Temuco and remarried Trinidad Candia.
There, in the middle of the countryside, the smells of rain, the green of the grass, muddy paths, stones to avoid the water, in that land of Araucanian fervor he spent his childhood and youth. There and thanks to Gabriela Mistral, director of the Girls' Lyceum, he came into contact with literature and discovered the great Russian writers who would accompany him throughout his life.
