Not only was Pablo Neruda one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets but his life was an integral part of the history of the century.

In Memoirs Neruda describes his bohemian youth in Santiago and his career as Chilean consul in Burma and Ceylon before the agony of the Spanish Civil War. Neruda was involved with an extraordinary range of people and events. He writes vividly about the friends he knew, from Lorca, Picasso and Ghandi to the events that he experienced, the Spanish Civil War and his political career in Chile. Neruda was a major political figure, as well as one of the most popular poets of his time.

'Packed with marvellous details that give colour to the story, as well as providing a way of understanding how Neruda’s fascination with real things, in real places, gives a shape to even his most vatic poems.' — The Guardian