Neruda - where to start?

[James]

Hi, all. I'm looking for suggestions on where to start with Neruda. Any volume in particular? Or is there a collection or anthology you'd recommend? Thanks.


james

[Silvia]

20 songs of love and 1 of despair; I think it comes in a bilingual version too.

[Jennifer]

James wrote: " Or is there a collection or anthology you'd recommend?
"

If you want to start with an anthology, I'd recommend Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems. It offers the original poems and facing page translations, which I think are well done, and it helped give me a feel for which of his individual books I wanted to read in their entirety (which turned out to be nearly all of them).

Cheers,
Jennifer

[James]

Thanks for the suggestions - they were very helpful.


james

[Esteban]

Read Odas Elementales

[Mark]

Jennifer wrote: "James wrote: " Or is there a collection or anthology you'd recommend?
"

If you want to start with an anthology, I'd recommend Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems. It offers the original po..."

Jennifer, James, wow, as the editor and one of the translators of Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems I'm thrilled to have just come across this thread, and recommendation, and interest-a decade later while searching for a post on Neruda. Always makes my heart smile!

To let you know, last year Ecco/HarperCollins published my Neruda: The Poet's Calling - a finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography. It builds on The Essential, which, James, I hoped you enjoyed if you got it! I hope you both enjoy the biography if you care to get it! More at www.markeisner.net but:

"Eisner brings alive Latin America's greatest poet... Empathetic but unflinching when occasion calls for criticism, Eisner weaves his subject's stanzas that resonate with the poet's personal stories. A definitive biography and instant classic."
— Library Journal

"Mark Eisner's definitive biography of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda reads like a beautifully written novel: attentive to scene, momentum, and rich with evocative details.”
— Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban

"Neruda: The Poet's Calling unfolds as a masterful weave of biography, literary criticism and cultural history, a scrupulous portrait of a genius as vast and contradictory as the continent he loved...Mark Eisner’s vigorously researched, engaging biography topples the poet from his pedestal while affirming his singular genius."
— The Barnes & Noble Review

paz, pan, flores y amor,
Mark