| 1921 |
February:
before he arrives in Santiago, the 12th edition of the university
magazine Claridad publishes the first six poems signed by Pablo
Neruda. He will include these six poems in Crepusculario, his
first book
March: he travels to Santiago and registers
in the Instituto Pedagógico of the Universidad de Chile
to study French teaching.
April 18th: he meets Albertina Azócar
Soto, his classmate at the Instituto Pedagógico and inspiring
muse of several poems of his book “Veinte poemas de amor
y una canción desesperada”.
October
14th: for his poem “La canción de la fiesta”,
printed in Claridad magazine, he receives the first prize of
the Chilean Students Federation’s contest “Prólogos
para la Fiesta de la Primavera”.
|
| 1922 |
August:
the literary group “Vremia” sponsors an audition
in which Neruda reads his poems.
He starts leading a bohemian life in Santiago. He lives in permanent
economic problems (his father has stopped giving him money),
but he remains permanently and obstinately dedicated to poetry
full time.
|
| 1923 |
He
returns to the South for the summer and stays in Puerto Saavedra
from January to March. During vacations he reads restlessly.
Neruda remembers: “By the coast, in the little Puerto
Saavedra, I found a municipal library and an old poet, Augusto
Winter, who was surprised by my literary voracity”.
June 23th: the critic Raúl Silva Castro
ponders over Neruda’s literary work: “...I can assure
there is no poet in this Earth who had reached such heights
at that age”.
July:
published by the Chilean Students Federation’s Claridad
Ediciones, the first edition of “Crepusculario”
appears.
He collaborates with poems and literary reviews –as critic
he uses the nickname Sachka- in the Dionysios and Claridad magazines.
He returns south.
|
| 1924 |
He spends his summer vacations in Baja Imperial’s coast,
where he writes part of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción
desesperada. In his memoirs he wrote: “The mainsprings
of the “Canción desesperada” are the old
mainsprings of Carahue and Baja Imperial”.
June: the first edition of Veinte poemas de
amor y una canción desesperada is released by the publishing
house Nascimento, in Santiago, Chile.
He translates from French, makes the preface and select Anatole
France’s “Páginas escogidas de Anatole France”.
This work is published by Nascimento.
August 20th: a letter by Neruda appears in
Santiago newspaper La Nación under the title “Exegesis
and loneliness”. In it, he explains the creative process
and expresses his sorrow for the critics’ incomprehension
of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada.
He becomes the director of Dionysios magazine.
|
| 1925 |
He becomes the director and editor of “Caballo de bastos”
magazine in Santiago, Chile.
October: he moves to Ancud, Chiloé,
invited by Rubén Azócar, who works there as a
teacher.
During his stay in Chiloé he writes his only novel: El
habitante y su esperanza, a story staged in a rural zone baptized
by him as Cantalao.
|
| 1926 |
|
During summer vacations he travels through Temuco, Osorno,
Puerto Montt, and then returns to Ancud.
In January, Nascimento publishers release Tentativa del hombre
infinito.
He returns to Santiago.
In this year he publishes another two books: El habitante
y su esperanza and Anillos, the last one in collaboration
with Tomás Lagos. Both books are published by Nascimento.
The second edition of “Crepusculario”, dedicated
to Juan Gandulfo , is published. This is not the final version,
but it was reproduced without changes until the Losada edition
in 1967, in which the texts and structure of the book were
checked in a very critical way.
His literary success didn’t mean he was booming. His
father badly accedes to send him some economic help.
|
| 1927 |
He
begins to pursue a position in Chilean consular hierarchy.
June: he is appointed as “particular consul of election”
in Rangoon (Burma).
June 14th: With his great friend Álvaro
Hinojosa, he starts the first part of the trip with Buenos Aires
as destination. In the Argentinean city he goes aboard to Lisboa.
July 16th: he arrives to Madrid and travels
through Paris, Marsella, Port Said, Djibouti, Colombo, Singapore
and finally Rangoon.
Now he is consul and correspondent of La Nación, the
Santiago newspaper that publishes the first Pablo Neruda’s
trip chronicle in august 14th. This writings will regularly
appear in La Nación.
October: he assumes his functions in Rangoon,
where he will stay until early 1929.
During his stay in Burma he’s engaged in a passionate
and conflicted relationship with a native who, as told by himself
“dressed like and English woman and whose street name
was Josie Bliss”. In his memoirs, the poet wrote: “Sweet
Josie Bliss became absorbed in thought and passionate until
she was ill with jealousy. If things had been different I had
stayed with her indefinitely”. She’s the muse for
several poems, “Tango del Viudo” among them.
November: he visits Madras in South East India.
|
| 1928 |
January:
with Alvaro Hinojosa he goes on a trip to Indochina. He visits
Raygon, Bangkok, Battambang and Beremberg.
February: he goes ahead to China. He goes to
Kowloon, Hong Kong and Shangai. In the middle of this month,
he arrives in Japan.
He returns to Rangoon and travels from there to Singapore.
March: Alvaro Hinojosa leaves and Neruda stays
in Rangoon.
December 5th: he’s appointed as selected consul in Colombo,
then capital of Ceylon.
He ends the year in Calcutta.
|
| 1929 |
January: he moves from Calcutta to Colombo
to take the Chilean consulate under his charge. During his stay
in the East, he writes most part of the poems that will form
the first part of Residencia en la tierra.
|
|
1930 |
May 5th: he’s appointed as selected
consul in Singapore and Batavia, Java, with jurisdiction over
Dutch colonies in the Sonda Archipelago.
June: he travels to Singapore and then to
Batavia, where he assumes his consular functions.
December 6th: he marries María Antonieta
Haagenar Vogelzanz.
|
| 1931 |
He works as consul in Singapore expecting to be transferred
to Spain. Due to the saltpeter crisis and the hard international
economic recession, Chilean government ends his consular functions
and commands him to go back to the Chile.
|
| 1932 |
On the first days of February and after a two months trip
by sea, he arrives in Chile with his wife.
April 18th: he arrives in Puerto Montt and
travels by ground to Temuco.
May: he moves to Santiago.
He works at the Chancellery’s library. He writes to
his friend Hector Eandi, with whom he kept an important exchange
of letters during his stay in the East: “Now they have
just appointed me as librarian of a library that doesn’t
exist, with a wage that almost doesn’t exist either”.
July: second and definitive edition of Veinte
poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, by Nascimento.
|
| 1933 |
|
January
24th: original edition of El hondero entusiasta by Empresa
Letras de Santiago publishers.
April 10th: Nascimento publishes Residencia en la Tierra (1925
– 1931) in a luxury edition of 100 numbered copies.
August 1st: he’s appointed as selected consul in Buenos
Aires, Argentina.
August 28th: he arrives in Argentina’s capital.
September 2nd: he takes possession of his charge in Buenos
Aires.
October 13th: he meets Federico García Lorca in Pablo
Rojas Paz’s house. It’s the beginning of a deep
friendship.
Both poets are honoured by the Argentinean PEN Club. On the
occasion, they pronounce together the famous speech “Al
alimón” in honour of Rubén Darío.
November 10th: he is made honorary consul in Barcelona’s
Chilean Consulate. |
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