A Reading in Honor of Pablo Neruda's Centennial

Chilean Nobel Laureate Most Known for His Love Poems

Listen: Dorfman Reads 'Sexual Water' in English

Listen: Dorfman Reads 'Sexual Water' in Spanish

Listen: Isabelle Allende Reads 'The Dead Woman,' from Neruda's <I>The Captain's Verses</I>

Pablo Neruda, circa 1946.
Corbis

Pablo Neruda, circa 1946.

Primary: Pablo Neruda, circa 1946.

Pablo Neruda, circa 1946.

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July 12, 2004

The Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda would have turned 100 years old today. Fellow Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez called him the "greatest poet of the 20th century — in any language."

Born the son of a railway worker, Neruda began writing poetry when he was 14. He spent his 20s in Spain, during the country's civil war, and went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1971, two years before he died.

Neruda is most famous for his love poems. To mark Neruda's centennial, Chilean-American poet Ariel Dorfman reads Neruda's poem "Sexual Water," from his collection Residence on Earth, in English and Spanish.

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