Born the son of a railwayman in 1904, Neruda studied in Santiago before becoming a consul in countries ranging from Burma to Spain, later returning to Chile to become a senator. As a member of the Communist Party, which he saw as the only hope for the desperately poor miners of the Chilean lowlands, he became a target of official persecution and in 1948 was driven from his senate seat into hiding. He eventually escaped to Europe, where he met such individuals as Eluard, Gandhi, Mao, and Picasso and traveled to Russia and China. Finally able to return home in 1952, he left Chile again to serve as ambassador to France; while in Europe in 1971, he was awarded the Nobel Prize. But his happiest years were spent at his home in the verdant Isla Negra off the coast of Chile, where he wrote this volume, which is not only a record of his extraordinary life but also a significant part of the history of our time.