The Poet as Vanguard: Pablo Neruda and the Politics of the Global South

Jorge Heine
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Jorge Heine: Jorge Heine is CIGI Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. jsievertheine@gmail.com

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, 2013, vol. 69, issue 3, 283-298

Abstract: Pablo Neruda has been described by some as the most widely read poet ever. His output was prodigious and diverse. He was also very much a man and a poet of his time, that of the first three-fourths of the ‘short’ twentieth century, a time very different from our own. That raises the question: Is it possible to split the poet from his politics? A standard recommendation of literary critics is to stick to Neruda’s ‘non-political’ work and forget the rest. Yet, Neruda himself insisted that not only his poetry but also his personal life and his politics formed an indivisible whole. At a time when the rise of Asia and South America is changing the global landscape, it is especially important to come to terms with the central perspective that inspired Neruda’s oeuvre : his identification with the common man and with the South; his anti-colonial spirit (honed during his Asian sojourn) and his extraordinary grasp of what José Martí referred as ‘nuestra América’. This article explores how Neruda provides us with a vocabulary and a grammar that allows us to look at the emerging new world of the twenty-first century with fresh eyes.

Keywords: Neruda; Global South; Third World; anti-colonialism; politics of identity; reconciled universal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indqtr:v:69:y:2013:i:3:p:283-298

DOI: 10.1177/0974928413489469

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