Sunday, April 7, 2013

Pablo Neruda... Poisoned?


As many of you surely noticed, I named this blog after Pablo Neruda's book of poems Odas Elementales.  He has a plethora of descriptive, palpable, beautiful odes to all the everyday things that make up the Chilean experience - a perfect poetic point of reference as I've been plunging in.

Neruda has been in the news lately because they are exhuming his body from his grave! Turns out that his supposed cause of death, prostate cancer, is debated.  Some think he was poisoned by the military right after the coup in 1973.  He was a strong opposer of the regime and posed a threat because he planed to go into exile and mobilize against Pinochet from Mexico.  Very interesting stuff... check out these links for more info!

http://www.santiagomagazine.cl/living/00911-pablo-neruda-poet-politician-populist-poisoned

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/chile-exhuming-body-of-poet-neruda-hoping-to-solve-coup-era-mystery-over-his-death/2013/04/06/ba525ea6-9ed4-11e2-9219-51eb8387e8f1_story.html


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