Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Born on 12 July 1904 and passing away on 23 September 1973, Neruda was not only a poet but a diplomat and a politician, who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature.

He became known as a poet in his teenage years and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems like his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).

Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions and served as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. During the presidency of Gabriel González Videla, communism was outlawed, leading to a warrant for Neruda's arrest. He escaped to Argentina and didn't return to Chile for more than three years.

He was a close advisor to Chile's socialist president, Salvador Allende, and read to an audience of 70,000 people at the Estadio Nacional upon his return to Chile after accepting the Nobel Prize. Neruda's death was initially attributed to heart failure, but suspicions of murder emerged later, particularly during the Pinochet regime.

Neruda is often considered the national poet of Chile. Gabriel García Márquez described him as "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language," and critic Harold Bloom included him among the writers central to the Western tradition in his book The Western Canon.