Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) and Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1910-1984)—contemporary poets, friends and outstanding humanists—have left lasting impression on the world of literature. Their works won global recognition—Neruda was honoured with Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 and Faiz won Lenin Peace Prize in 1962. Both Neruda and Faiz, like many others, notably Nazim Hikmet and Mahmoud Darwish, were essentially humanists, anti-colonialists and anti-imperialists. Their great struggle and works were interwoven—these were inseparable. Their work complimented their struggle and vice versa.
The life and work of Neruda has amazing similarities with that of Faiz.
Pable Neruda (1904-1973)
[i]Neruda (real name Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto), was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried Doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls’ secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily La Mañana, among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia –his first publication– and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal Selva Austral under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.
