The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems (Bilingual Edition) (English and Spanish Edition)

"What better way to honor one of the world's great poets than with crystalline new translations of 50 of his most enticing poems?"  - San Francisco magazine

"What better way to celebrate the hundred years of Neruda's glorious residence on our earth than this selection of crucial works - in both languages! - by one of the greatest poets of all time. A splendid way to begin a love affair with our Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again."
- Ariel Dorfman, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Death and the Maiden

This bilingual collection of Neruda's most essential poems is indispensable.

Selected by a team of poets and prominent Neruda scholars in both Chile and the U.S., this is a definitive selection that draws from the entire breadth and width of Neruda's various styles and themes.

An impressive group of translators that includes Alistair Reid, Stephen Mitchell, Robert Hass, Stephen Kessler and Jack Hirschman, have come together to revisit or completely retranslate the poems; and a handful of previously untranslated works are included as well.

This selection sets the standard for a general, high-quality introduction to Neruda's complete oeuvre.

"...The Essential Neruda will prove to be, for most readers, the best introduction to Neruda available in English. In fact, I can think of few other books that have given me so much delight so easily. "--The Austin Chronicle

"This book is a must-have for any reader interested in a definitive sampling of the most essential poems by one whom many consider one of the best poets of the 20th century."--Mike Nobles,Tulsa World

"A splendid way to begin a love affair with our Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again."--Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden

"The editors and translators know how to extract gold from a lifetime of prolific writing. If you want a handy Neruda companion and don't know where to begin, this is it."--The Bloomsbury Review

Pablo Neruda is regarded as the greatest Latin American poet of the 20th century. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, his breadth of vision and wide range of themes are extraordinary, and his work continues to inspire new generations of readers and writers. Mark Eisner is the book's editor and one of its principal translators. He has backpacked and worked throughout Latin America from Cuba to Chile. Some of this book developed while Mark was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center for Latin American Studies, where he had earlier earned a masters. He is the founder of Red Poppy, a non-profit dedicated to promoting the power of Latin American poetry: the power to evoke emotions and foster social consciousness. He is currently finishing both a documentary and a biography on Neruda. 

Prefatory Note by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

There have been many Pablos in history, and Pablo Neruda is one to exceed Picasso in the prolific production of great works, as well as in the depths of his proletarian empathies.

I met this Pablo in the Hotel Havana Libre (once the Havana Hilton) in 1959 in the first days of revolutionary euphoria, and that night he spoke his poetry to several thousands of multi-ethnic Fidelistas (still in combat clothes) in the great government hall where the late dictator had held forth. His rapport with the masses was evident in every poem he spoke (with standing ovations), just as poems in this book speak to us all, Spanish-speaking or not.

Neruda had told me before the reading, "I love your wide-open poetry" — by which he meant, I believe, the poetry of the Beat Generation that we had published in San Francisco and some of which had been published in translation in Lunes de Revolución (the Monday literary supplement to the big daily).

And I answered, "You opened the door." I hope this edition will open the door for the greater American public (who needs these messages).