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Pablo Neruda: the poet and the two dictators
On the 50th anniversary of the mysterious death of Pablo Neruda, JIM JUMP looks at how the life of the poet and communist was inextricably linked to two notorious dictators
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AGED 32 and already a prolific poet, Pablo Neruda was a consul at the Chilean embassy in Madrid when in July 1936 Francisco Franco helped lead a revolt against Spain’s Popular Front government.
It was a defining moment for Neruda. His poetry would never be the same again. Nor would his politics. He gave vent to his feelings in I’m Explaining a Few Things, one of his greatest poems:
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers…
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