By Rita Guibert.
Published in Seven Voices (Mexico, 1974).
Writing for me is like breathing. I could not live without breathing and could not live without writing.
Could write as much as before?
I think so.
writing I've seen in the car ...
I write where I can and when I can, but I'm always writing.
you always do in manuscript?
Since I had an accident where I broke a finger, I could not, for a few months, driving the typewriter. I followed the custom of my tender youth and turned to writing by hand. Then when I got better on my finger, which was half that Brad and I could use the machine, I had reacostumbrado to write by hand. I found that writing hand was the most sensitive and plastic forms of my poetry could easily change Biar. That is, I realized that the hand had something to do with it. I just read that Paris Review Robert Graves says the journalist who asked him: "Did not you have called attention to something in this house, in this piece? Everything is handmade. "" The writer Robert Graves says should not live only among things handmade. "But I think Robert Graves also forgot that poetry should be written by hand. It seems to me that the machine away from me intimidation Dad with a lot of poetry, and the hand has brought me back to that privacy.
What are your hours?
I have no schedule, but preferably in the morning. That is, if at this time Rita was not wasting my time, and losing him, I would be writing.
More or less, how many hours a day writing?
not write and read many things daily. My desire would be to write all day, but often the fullness of thought, of expression, something that comes in a Tumul mentally sound from my own inspiration, using an old-fashioned word, let me or satisfied or exhausted or filled or empty. Ie, could not continue. Otherwise I like it too much to live for all the din to be sitting at a desk. This is something that you disagree with me, I like to get into all traji tions of life, my house, politics, nature. I'm always coming and going. I can not say then that in holy all day to write, but where and when I can write is hard. I do not mind crowded around me. I can write and develop my thinking even they are talking, arguing or fighting. Moreover, if suddenly fall silent, that disturbs me.
Already finished writing his last book?
Yes, it is called the flaming sword.
"Prose or verse? Always
verse. This is the myth of Adam and Eve, the punishment and guilt, in fact, a new Adam, a new Eve. The world over, the bomb and war have destroyed it, and Adam, the only man on earth, he meets Eve. The human life begins again with them. It is a book of great intensity. Well, there's the book. I do not know well. I just wrote and I have not read any means. When I finish a book I do not like to correct errors immediately because I feel the desire to get away from him. Now I'm hoping to spend a few days to reread it more calmly.
When will?
In March or April next year.
Who publishes?
Losada, Buenos Aires. Losada is my editor and I have with him the best of relationships. It has not always been like that for me, I've fought with many publishers. The relationship between tor and publisher writing is difficult enough, but I have the luck to have an editor who understands me and that I have not ever had pro blems.
Do not have editors in Chile?
I have them, but are small for the need for ex pansion of my books. My first editors were Chilean and occasionally I give my books. I often inte resa a book comes first in a Chilean edition. I have done with the latest works. Limited editions of CEMOS here and Losada has never has this trouble.
Will write another book?
course I'll write another, but I can not say what it is, I have not made a plan. I just finished The flaming sword and I have not corrected.
How long to write a book?
About a year. World order, which was published last year, took over a year to write. The latter has been faster even though I had less time.
You never took into account his prose. Why?
prose ... All my life I felt the need to write in verse and am not interested in expression in prose. The warp used to express some kind of feelings temporary or derivatives opments Acon story. Also, I've always written without taking too pro sa account and the truth is that I can leave it entirely. Just write in prose temporarily.
For years you have been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Do you think that the presidency might somehow influence the decision of the Academy Swedish?
question
That should made to the academy and me no, and naturally, the academy the no reply.
If you had to choose between the presidency and the prize, would you choose?
not a matter of choice between things as illusory.
Supposing you put on a table the Presidency and the Pre mine?
If I put it in a table I'm going to sit at another table.
What about Sartre's attitude when he received the Nobel Prize?
is very respectable, but it is an individual reaction of his powerful personality. I do not think that is a matter to be tir, I think it's a very worthy reaction a man as fighter and as consistent as Sartre. Do you just
Award Beckett?
I think so. Beckett is a brief but exquisite writer. I also think that the Nobel Prize which always falls honoring literature, poetry, novel or the theater. I am not of those who are always discriminated against if the Prize liked or fell ill. What is the significance of this award, if any, is that literary skill gives a title of respect for the masses, for the people, for others. That is the most important.
Many times you have been strongly attacked by the way you live and your financial ... In
Overall this is a myth. We have received an inheritance pretty bad in a sense of Spain. He could never tolerate its people excel, to be distinguished in something. As we know, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain in chains. I think of Spain received the impact of the petty bourgeoisie passed envious thinking about what other people have and what you do not have it. I have dedicated my life to the demands of the people, and what I have in my house, my books, is a product of my own work. I have not exploited anyone. But that criticism does not ever do those with large fortunes as an inheritance. Never do the writers rich per family. It is thought they are entitled to have the means cho economic than others. In cam bio of a writer like me has almost 50 years of work, are all the time saying, "Look, look how they live. It has a waterfront home, making a good wine. "Is very difficult to make a bad wine in Chile because almost all the wine in Chile is good. Anyway, all this chorus of idiots of our time I do not care. It is a problem in some ways reflects the underdevelopment of our country, the mediocrity of our environment. You yourself told me that Norman Mailer had paid about $ 90,000 for three articles in an American magazine. Here, if a Latin American writer to receive compensation for their work and tina wake wave of protests by other writers, saying: "What abuse! Too bad! But where are we going to stop! "Instead of running all over the world happy that a writer can achieve such hono rari. Well, as I say, these are called evils of cultural underdevelopment.
Could it be that more intense charge you belong to the Communist Par Tido?
This is precisely the value of a position like mine. He who has nothing has been said many times, it has nothing to lose but their chains. And each time I risked my life, my person, I have, my books, my house, I put all this into play to defend the future and justice. My house has been burned, I have been persecuted, have been arrested more than once, I've been exiled, held incommunicado is a me, I have looked everywhere for a thousand policemen. Very well, then. I will not compromise with what I have. I put what I have available to let people's struggle. This house belongs to which you are over 20 years the Communist Party of Chile to whom I gave the public deed. I'm in this house simply by a decision of my party, by the generosity of my party. I usufruct of an asset that is not mine because I gave it, and all collections, and all the books, and all objects in this house. I've given away more than a library the entire college of my shovel. He also donated the house to actually live some of the leaders of my party. Live from the proceeds of my books. I have no savings, I have nothing to have but what I paid for my books each month. It's over there. Okay, that those who criticize me do the same and that, keep at least her shoes somewhere to give to others.
Could it be another of his donations Cantalao Foundation, a city of writers in Isla Negra?
Lately I've managed to acquire, paying in installments, a large lot next to the sea so that future writers can spend their vacation and do their creative work in an environment of extraordinary Beauty, as will the Foundation Cantalao. Will be led by people from the Catholic University, University of Chile and the Society of Writers. It will be a foundation for scholarship writers can live for a year with the proceeds of my copyright, enjoying a common house for meetings and events as well as individual cabins to work. You
attributed antagonism Borges.
The antagonism that I attributed to Borges existing in the background you can exist in an intellectual way and our diverse cultural orientation. One can fight alone. But I have other enemies, not writers. My enemies are the gorillas, for me the enemy is imperialism, and capitalism are the CAS and are the ones who dropped the napalm in Vietnam. But Borges is not my enemy.
What about the literature of Borges?
is a great writer, and dammit, we are very proud of the English-speaking people there Borges, especially the American people, because before Borges had very few writers who could afford a comparison with Europe. We had great writers, but a writer of universal type, as Borges, there is very little in our countries. He has been at the forefront. I can not say it was the largest, and hopefully that is a hundred times surpassed by others, but anyway he opened the gap, attention, intellectual curiosity erty from Europe to our country. That's all I can say. But I fight with Borges, for all the world do you want me to fight with Borges, I never will. He thinks like a dinosaur, it has nothing to do with my pen cessing. He does not understand what's happening in the contemporary world and think that I did not understand. So this we agree.
Sunday visited him a few young Argentines who sang, accompanied by guitars, a milonga Borges. I think that he really liked.
Borges Milonga I loved it, especially is an example, so tight that a poet, a writer, say so sophisticated, or so intellectual, overturning a popular topic of a lar doing so accurate and true. I really like the milonga of Borges and I think they should follow his example many American poets, as almost all have the same concern our popular and traditional.
You also have asked him to write letter of milongas. Will you?
I do not think it is a form of my country, is a form of the Río de la Plata, so I do not know enough. To do so one has to master this popular style, must agree with the people of one, with the roots of nationhood and life.
Have you written for music Chilean folk?
I've done something. Are well known in this country.
What do you remember most about her personal life, politics and literature?
I do not know. The most intense memories of my life possible mind are the memories of my life in Spain. A great brotherhood of poets, a great friendship with many of them, a welcome as fraternal and of such quality that I had not cone down in this world, our American, so full of alacraneos, how and in Buenos Aires says. Afterwards, it was terrible for me to see all this republic of colleagues, friends, co sas that state of that kingdom, torn by civil war, he showed me the terrible reality of oppression and fascism. My friends were scattered by war, some were killed there, my mo, like Garcia Lorca, and Miguel Hernandez, Murie others were in exile and others are still in exile. All of this face in my life was rich in events, give deep emotions and decisive changes in my own history and evolu tion of my life.
So is Spain the country more fundamental in your life?
The country is more fundamental to me is my country. But perhaps, after Chile, Spain is what CIA has been more important. I do not know what will now still struggling at the end of Franco. I've never return to it fully. I just passed through its ports.
Would you allow the ticket?
I was not refused entry in an official manner. On the contrary, on one occasion I was invited by the Embassy of my country to give concerts. It seemed then that everything was there swimming in terms of visas. It is quite possible that I leave traro. I will not argue this point because it can be a convenience to the English government, which wanted to show some sense of democracy by allowing the entry of those who have as strong mind fought. I do not know. Prevented me from entering many countries and have been expelled from many others that truly this is an issue that causes me no irritation to me occurred early. Over time these things have also been relaxed. Many of the measures taken against me to get me out of a country have changed and abolished. In every way, no longer produced a lively itching that let me in or not let me in on one part or another.
The Ode to Federico García Lorca, written before he died, in a way you predicted his tragic end.
Yes, it drew the poem, it seems that NAND vatici was somehow his death, being that Frederick was a person so happy, it was a happy creature. I have met very few beings like him. It was the embodiment, will not say success, but the love of life. Enjoyed every minute of his life, was a big spender with joy. So this has been one of the most unforgivable crimes of fascism.
You always mentioned in his poems, as well as Miguel Hernández.
Hernandez was like a son, was a little my disciple in poetry. Practically lived in my house where I ate almost every day. That was proved a lie that has surrounded the death of Federico García Lorca, the official lie that has tried to give as a cause of this crime the first moments of confu sion of the Civil War, which naturally existed. But, if so, why then the fascist government of Spain man had for so long in prison, after the assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca, the most extraordinary poets of the younger generation was Miguel Hernandez? Why he held until his death in prison? Why even refused to transfer him to a hospital, as proposed by the Embassy of Chile? The death of Miguel Hernandez is also a murder.
of their stay in the East, what do you remember most?
My stay in the East was somehow a meet ORT for which I was prepared. I was overwhelmed by the splendor of that continent dor I did not know while I was desperate, because it was very long period of my life and my solitude. And many times I thought it was locked in an interminable film in full color, wonderful, but I never let out of that movie nuaba continue forever. I did not have the mystique that leads many American rights and many others to India. I guess people who go to India to find a religious response to their concerns will see things differently. I moved towards substantiate this great state, that vast nation as iner me, so helpless, tied to the yoke of empire. English culture itself, which always had the extraordinary predilection tion, sometimes nefarious seemed to be an instrument of submission tambo intellectual for many of the Hindus at that time. I also mixed it with the rebellious youth of the continent, despite my consular office, often all the revolutionaries. I was aware of the great movement that would later produce the independence of India. In those years, 1928 I got to know (if only by changing some words, and a greeting pa) to Nehru, his father, Pandit Motilal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, one of the most interesting of the revolutionary era in India, which led of its intention sísimo patriotism was the last war of the Japanese side. It was the spirit of many blind independentista TAS India and colonial empires in Asia. They gave them both a ruler as the other. Changing settlers believed would have the opportunity to divide. I can not judge Subhas Chandra Bose although at that time Japan was an ally of Hitler. His memory is still very respected in India Tada. I also met anonymous students, teachers and writers, not without difficulty, because they also give. trust me. Suspicious of everything and they were right. At a so-big fight everyone should have their eyes open.
Was in India where he wrote Residencia en la tierra?
Yes, but India has no intellectual influence on my poetry. Do you also
from there he wrote these letters as moving the Argentine Héctor Eandi?
Yes, those letters were a great episode in my life. The Argentine writer, whom I knew personally, took over as a good Samaritan, to keep me abreast of the news, he sent me periodic moments of great loneliness. I was afraid to lose contact with the language because it was surrounded by people speaking other languages, and for months, or years, it was to talk in English. I remember that in a letter to Rafael Alberti asked tionary December 1 English, who was not in India. I can also say that for weeks had not seen a single person human hand.
Did you go to, India on its own will?
No, I had a post of consul, but it was a small post consul consuls of those who have no salary. I lived in great poverty and loneliness also larger.
Ahí.usted had the great romance with Josie Bliss, who was mentioned in many of his poems.
Yes, Josie Bliss was a woman who left a very deep mark in my poetry. I've always remembered, even in recent books.
Your work is closely linked to your personal life?
Naturally, the life of a poet has to be reflected in his poetry. This is the law of occupation and law of life.
You are one of the most translated poets, about 30 languages.
I have not ever told, but I know that have been translated into several sites.
What language thought to be best translated?
I would say in Italian, because there is a similarity of values \u200b\u200bbetween the two languages. Both English and French are the two languages \u200b\u200bthat I know was in Italian, do not run correspond to the English language or vocalization, or the placement of words, or color, or weight of them. This means that the stability of a poem written in English with waste or verbal economy, but has a far and a way of posing every word, m is its equivalent.
What accounts for the Chilean Communist Party is the more important in Latin America? We
us a great organizer, called Luis Emilio Recabarren, a gigantic man who founded it and 45 or 50 years the Chilean labor press. That is, small newspapers that expressed the concerns of the Chilean people. He founded the first trade unions, the major union federations, and he also founded the Communist Party. It was an extraordinary man. Is a man revered by the people of Chile. He is regarded as a father of the country. This man sat in his passionate fight base an organic party, a party tireless and has not deviated to the right or to the izquierdis mo. That has always sought the path to face the enemies popular and concentration to their strength and fighting in support of workers and peasants, and this game has grown in size and prestige.
Is not this the first Communist candidate about 38 years?
Yes, for a long time we have failed to submit candidate. But it was necessary to do it. We have accompanied other forces to come out of two popular a particular application. This time we present our others.
Are more likely now?
We are the majority party of the left in Chile, so we have as much chance as the other parties.
"Justify Violence?
There is violence and violence. In countries that do are undermined by the fascist terror and violence I justify all means to get out of that situation. How likely is when people governs criminal as in the case of Papa Doc in Haiti? There are long filled the jails of political prisoners, and in Paraguay. Each people must choose their path. You can not say "do not believe in violence" as a political general axiom. Violence, ie the union of forces revolutionary in a country to change the established order, can be preceded by a conjunction of forces accompanying a movement of this kind. But the violence created individually, singly, in general it also enables Fraca sada and repression against the people. Not to mention that many of the terrorist acts were organized for centuries by the police.
Would you needed violence in Chile?
We can not even think such a thing because we can talk and say what we want. It would be insane pro pici a solution of violence.
You've been a very difficult time in Chile ...
are few moments in the history of Chile and we Chileans know much history. We know that any repression of the class that I suffered (I paid and was chased consequences) is a transient state, and always has ce repression, violence does, pays. This means that the act of violence, coming from the governments of Chile, instead of fortifying the weak deeply.
Do you think that socialism could rescue the Latin America of colonialism and underdevelopment, and why?
course, the only system that can lead the Latin America of its tremendous backlog is socialism. We must overcome all trials that have been made in these countries, often aimed more well to keep the colo nial exploitation and bleeding of our people to the metropolis of capitalism. Socialism is a creative force, represents a revolution type that fits entirely to the problems of Latin America. We also have a large continent with no traditions, therefore fertility cialismo have created the so-here a new way, have unique characteristics.
is, will have its own line, being neither Russia nor the Maoist, or Castro.
Marxism teaches us that the development of society has to adapt to its history, its environment, the entire life of their people, not necessarily follow any model. But you have to have the experience of people who have made a revolutionary solution. We in Latin America, the Cuban Revolution can not say that she is an archetype of any other model. Naturally, we Chileans live in a country very different from Cuba and have other features in nut development, both economic cultural horn. A revolution in Chile would find in much more advanced than the one with Cuba before the revolution. The Chilean people is eminently operator, is eminently capable of undertaking any of the techniques. Our skilled workers and our technicians are all over the Latin American continent accepted RICA horn often technical specialists or directors of companies. Cuba was a country of a single product, sugar, and previous governments have neglected the industry revolution, the revolution so surprised to Cuba with a high percentage of people who could not do in the factories cas what they can do For example, the workers, technical workers and Chile. The fact that Cuba at this time has undertaken a transformation in him in this direction, and other roads and arousing the sense of industry, has also been a great success in the Cuban revolution.
You said that America remains a threat to America Latina. ¿Por qué?
Desgraciadamente yo soy un hombre pacífico y todos estas conceptos son muy desagradables pero verdaderos. La historia misma del desarrollo industrial y económico de los Estados Unidos ha tomado un carácter expansionista desde hace mucho tiempo. Y hemos sido no sólo amenazados sino agredidos mu chas veces. La historia de la América Latina está llena de esta clase de abusos que han dejado naturalmente huellas muy profundas en nuestros pueblos. En los últimos años la doctrina del imperialismo, tan acentuada en los Estados Unidos, se ha visto fortificada con teóricos que hasta han llegado a justificar empre sas tan atroces como la guerra de Vietnam. No sé por qué, no encuentro razón theoretical meritorious to believe that if the U.S. rialismo Impe has gone far afield of its territory as Vietnam and Korea, to implement their theories and to establish their dominance, why not continue doing in our Latin America is much more closely and has been considered by the U.S. imperialists and their own land, as their rear. Military pacts that have made Latin American countries have no na da to do with the consent of our peoples, are eminently covenants intended to conduct an aggressive policy to join the cauro of aggressive and threatening experience of political and military. In addition, we have very close experience Santo Domingo and Cuba. Before we Nicaragua, Mexico, Central America, Panama, in short, is a long story. But recently these things still go further with the famous report of Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller at a time spent by a person of intellectual attitude, artistic concerns, and I remember that dur ing the great war against fascism Nelson Rockefeller pa peared to be for many a friend in Latin America. In recent years he has stuck to Johnson's car. Lately he has served President Nixon for a company of such colonization. Rockefeller's report to President Nixon, we've read, has been published in many places, is a prodigy political hardening and total ignorance of our reactions after moral, historical and emotional. The now advises American support for military governments in a frank and claiming that these governments are a constitutive force that can be used to implement some kind of social justice that was accepted by the U.S. imperialists today. Ie, Nelson Rockefeller, to be a man of 1970, who knows and lost its former prestige, repeats the policy that opened Theodore Roosevelt, who called the big stick policy, that is, to encourage all military caste what this means for Latin American caudillo, beatings unconstitutional. It also fostered division and aggressive military spirit among Latin American nations. Is this a test that Latin Americans have very little that is perarid are found in American politics until it does not change in a comprehensive and rational. That is, when the U.S. takes into account actual experience, do what is passed between his youth, among its intellectuals, its universities, see the disapproval in his own country deserve their aggressive acts, then, when taking into account and re-formulate the new policy that could unite our continent could begin to establish many acts of collaboration. By the time the general policy of the United States is not only aggressive against us but against "the majority of people worldwide. Has established itself as a superpower that believes it necessary to establish its power without precise limits, beyond its own territory. This is serious. This chapter is very long and would have to return many times over it.
speak of imperialism may seem a populist touch, especially for the European observer or the observer apolitical, but we in Latin America, we know what nernos ate, we had the result of U.S. interference in almost all our countries. Here, and I'm not going to speak for myself, Sen. Renan Fuentealba, was ordinator Party Christian Democratic government that is Chile, which has close links with politicians Norteam Americans and their government, just say in a public complaint that the CIA is trying to provoke a military coup in Chile. I do not say I have not said the Communists, has been pronounced by a senator from the government, a government that is not characterized by any anti-American spirit. Tigated was not fully in this report. However, the Christian Democratic senator, who is the one-party government has made this complaint. It means that he and his party and the government go in Chile have a history quite clear to make a statement of this kind. Naturally, Proving once again the weight of the harmful influence of U.S. policy in our countries, the very fact that this claim has not continued investigation. A spirit of independence and dignity have advised the government to investigate and show the national opinion that has true in these claims tions of the Christian Democrat.
Do you think you can reach a settlement between the powers?
I am in favor of understanding, I support peace. The settlement in principle between capitalism and socialism is another thing. Two agencies are struggling to prove the effi ciency of your system. Capitalism is in decline we are witnessing its decline. Socialism is a new force in humanity, with visible power above ism capita based on an intelligent understanding of the relationship between human beings and also the means of production and distribution of wealth among men. I believe that reconciliation is not, but should have the respect needed to coexist. A once told me my old friend Ehrenburg that when he was in New York proposed to speak with an American millionaire. They searched the millionaire millionaire to speak with a Soviet. Talking with Ehrenburg, the millionaire said: "Not you illusions, we are not afraid of their bombs, to we fear is that their pans. The pans of the Soviet Union. "I think this is quite understandable. While the pans are full, while the pots are in the kitchens of the socialist countries are testing a new system in the world economy is effective, successful, walking. And the super-rich was right. Ehrenburg was very pleased with his frankness.
Do you think there will be a revolution in the U.S.?
is not imminent, but there is a pronounced state of rebellion in the United States. I do not know where to go, but I think that at least the awareness of intellectual young people and university has ever weigh in the direction of the state and the conditions under which life develops the U.S. history. It is the beginning of an era, is the first beginning of an era. I do not know when it will be the second part of this stage, or when will be the third, it depends on the Americans. No prescription can be determined. I think that. Capitalism is doing crisis not only in America but in many places. Can immediately see that there is a huge crisis dwell within the American way of life. The American Way of Life has not exactly brought prosperity to happiness, but in many cases, the desperation of people U.S..
What it gives?
I think it is a crisis of the capitalist system. It has set a goal of prosperity based on a series of ferocious laws that are exploding. I think that this crisis of the overall system is reaching everyone. The Vietnam War has done to humanity a truly unprecedented. All energies, the wealth of a great country like the United States engaged in the extermination of a people far away, unknown to the young Americans who are sent to kill and die, it is a fact that has illuminated the dormant consciousness bloodshed much of humanity. The tragedy of Vietnam so lit aroused in the United States in certain parts of the United States, a feeling of guilt that was extended and caused a lot of things: on one hand, the rebelliousness of youth, and on the other, despair. I attribute to the war in Vietnam that power catalyst. Never was most unjust war, never saw the man committing collective excesses so strange and cruel. But at the same time had to cause reflection of the intellectual tive instincts. Why a country that had such extraordinary thinkers like Thoreau or Whitman, or like many others, that nearly extended the human scale, how a country, which also became head of the industrial revolution, who made so many extraordinary things in the domain of knowledge and culture growth in the years before the war, was able to beat Hitler in barbarism and inhumanity. The two founded the United States the immense capital of dreams that was Hollywood, advancing the film, without the momentum could have taken a century to develop. In short, we expect many extraordinary feats of Americans (who have pale cum sometimes, as the explorations of the moon), one wonders: How the country can devote all her energy to Termini and the former terror? Well, I think that this question was the man he was also doubtful of the system, establishment, question the verdad que se le decía, y empezó a producir la amargura, el escepticismo y muchas veces la deses peración que se ven en la vida norteamericana. Además, la ola infinita de terrorismo, de atentados criminales, como la muerte de Luther King, del presidente John Kennedy, del senador Robert Kennedy, y las masacres hechas por muchachos, criminales de nuevo tipo, increíbles, desinteresados, demoníacos, como aquel sobre el cual escribió Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (A sangre fría), o el cri men de Charles Manson, no son casos tan aislados, se encadenan unos a otros formando un hilo que tiene que ver con la crisis moral del sistema, con una perversidad que sale a flote, pero que estaba ya plantada de alguna manera en the life of a society that was messing up, which was perverted. Therefore this question you are doing re flexes as stitching is related to another question: is there a revolution? "This revolution, who will do it? If no large masses of workers involved in making with science, this revolution will be postponed. The revolution can not students in any country. May be aware that the world is wrong, but the strength of a movement organization ized has to come from people themselves. And that I do not see even in the United States. In the black people have seen a great awakening, and it is possible for an organization next reveal so many interesting and important in the very development of this revolution, but beyond that I do not know, I know, I am not informed.
What do you think of the current Cuban situation?
The Cuban Revolution is a fairly large and important enough that we, the writers of my generation, we have no further obligation to defend it. The Cuban has done a remarkable importance in the lives of Latin America. It is perhaps the most decisive event in our work history since independence movements in 1810. Of course the life of the Cuban Revolution has been disrupted by a series of factors that have seriously endangered the revolution which has needed all their energy to survive, especially the extension of the boycott that Latin American governments have been imposed by the Department of State taxation. This has been tragic. The first thing you should have done was to increase our relations with Cuba, have met the progress of this great new experience in the continent, have had all the necessary relationships sary to know the process of revolution. Now things happen as grotesque as this: to go to Cuba, the niece of former President Jorge Alessandri (now back on the right presidential candidate) had to start from here to Madrid, from Madrid to Prague, from Prague to Cuba, where he was one weeks. To return had to fly Havana to Madrid or London, then to Prague, from Prague to Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires to Chile. That is, a flight of about ten hours it takes four to five days to return it. These are the fruits ridiculous isolation and blockade imposed on Cuba. But all who applaud these measures are those who complain of the Iron Curtain and the difficulties that creates them writers, while Cuba is being imposed on a kind of fence is unacceptable, medieval, intended to ignore their progress and kill by starvation . This is completely bizarre as well as being unfair. The fact that you can not not visit, not trade or have diplomatic relations with a Latin American country with people so close to us, como parientes nuestros que hablan nuestro idioma, con una historia común, me parece, verdaderamente, el colmo. Y todo porque gobernantes como Johnson o Nixon y los capitalistas criollos no gustan del sistema político de ese país. Esto es completamente grotesco. Ellos son dueños de darse el régimen que quieren. Los chilenos estamos muy atentos a las experiencias de la Revolución Cubana y miramos con inmensa simpatía su creciente desarrollo.
¿Y el Che Guevara?
El Che Guevara ha llegado a ser un mito. Fue un hom bre de mucha valentía y de mucho interés. Queda poco por decir porque todo se ha dicho. Ha pasado a ser un mito mundial y una influencia activa y creadora del siglo XX. Muy doloroso su des tino. He was killed in a country that will soon lift monuments in their honor.
Returning to Cuba, could not be compared with its blockade of Germany?
Ah, this is different. In a country a socialist state and the other a capitalist state. Also it was getting from West Germany a major campaign to give truir from there the state of the People's Republic of Germany. The fence is unpleasant, but I think it was necessary. Meanwhile, democratic Germany, East Germany, has elements ford as one of the largest economic powers in the world, I think it ranks ninth among producing countries producers. It is miraculous that despite having the West Germany side with great momentum and tremendous support from the United States and the monopolies, the country has left the de struction of the ruins, and has achieved many successes with the new company he has built. In general, all borders between peoples must be ended. But there are some more painful than others. I guess what has been happening in Germany has caused Brá practical human problems, huge problems, but I think that by being so close geographically one had this separation. While not recognize that Germany and did not mind unhappy mutual respect has to be. So what we in America are diplomatic relations with Cuba, recognition of the Cuban Revolu tion and the Cuban state, the current state of the Cuban nation, as it is, with its revolution and the republic.
Technology Has the crisis of humanistic cultural values?
Well, some people think that technology is going to swallow the man. I do not think so. I remember how the English farmers, and Americans, fighting the railroad. Technology is an absolute necessity for human progress. The development of technology does not have to eat the man. This fear of technical progress and projections that may have a cosmic fear, with a ca Racter superstition as large as that of the prehistoric tribes rich. Now we have come to dread the man himself, cosmic fear what man can discover. I certainly do not feel any of these panics. I think that, by contrast with the way of man is the discovery, I think God abdicated and that since then God is man.
One of the fears and justified, is that technological advances are used for destructive purposes nological.
The curse of mankind is that everything is perfect in technical ends used for the destruction of human life. Well, on that basis we have cover creases the humanism of that time, fighting the war against thermo-nuclear explosion. But this is a fight apart. Not because these things occur we will block his path to technical advancement. There really is shocking that these means of destruction. Just now in Chile Linus Pauling, a very respectable man, who has spoken so frankly and expressed as extraordinary nary concepts about atomic destruction that has put us on guard. Naturally, in recent years has been a huge movement against the nuclear threat and possibly the major powers agree not to continue manufacturing. I do not know really how those negotiations go, but I think the intention is serious. What
is predicted for the next decade?
I do not know if there is more hope than prediction. Pien so that you can solve the problem of Vietnam, namely the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the Vietnamese people's determination. It is the most serious conflict that has humanity. I think that is also observed in the course of the two Germanies as separate republics, this will bring a large tran quilidad to Europe. But it seems that I am speaking as the visionaries!
Well, what then is what is expected of the new decade?
really think that will happen. Instead, I see so close to resolve the conflict in the Middle East also a serious problem. In Latin America think there will be a general trend towards greater independence of imperia lism. Will intensify the struggle against imperialism and I think the most important thing will happen in Chile. I think the election will win the popular forces to be pretty big changes. I can not say what happens in other Latin American countries and in many of them the conditions are unbearable.
This interview was done during the election campaign of 1970 in Chile. Neruda participating as a candidate of the Left withdrawing just for Allende, achieving a united left won the election. This government end up with a coup, the death of Allende and the beginning of the Pinochet dictatorship.
The interview is divided into three parts, the first two focus on political issues, the third focuses more on the writer Neruda.
After witnessing in Stockholm the Nobel Prize for Literature 1971 to Pablo Neruda, I traveled with him and his wife, Matilde Urrutia, to Warsaw, where his play closely naba Glare and death of Joaquin Murrieta.
At sixty-seven, Pablo Neruda, doubly consecrated as Nobel Prize level as Chile's ambassador in France, was warmly received, both in Warsaw and in is Stockholm, intellectuals, reporters and photographers. But Neruda, a poet for whom "life is a gift," has always been a charismatic personality. As Margaret Aguirre said the lives of Pablo Neruda: "It's a man who can not look in vain. Dazzle her strength, her warmth, and it's like something magnetic, a mysterious attraction, tie us to his presence. "
When I met Neruda, in 1966, in New York, was also the center of attraction in International PEN Congress, whenever I read his poetry, whether in the room full of the Poetry Center or an intimate gathering of friends, creating a magnetism between the poet, poetry and listeners. However, Nerudas all I've seen, which I know best is when I interviewed at his home in Isla Negra, where I stayed during the last two weeks of political campaign policy as a presidential candidate by the Communist Party of Chile. Neruda, as we know, faced with a divided left, withdrew his candidacy to support the socialist candidate Salvador Allende.
Island is an island no Black or black. It is a beautiful and elegant Chilean beach located about five miles south of Valparaiso and a two hour drive from Santiago. Nobody knows the origin of the name, but attributes it to Neruda large black rocks, vaguely delineated as islands, which are visible from the terrace of his house. Thirty years ago, when Isla Negra was a completely unknown and desolate, rugged Ne bought with money he earned with his poetry an area of \u200b\u200b6,000 square meters on the beach with a small stone house on top of a hill. "After the house was older, like people, like trees."
Neruda has other houses, one on the Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago, and one in Valparaiso, which has been given nothing for the recent earthquakes. To decorate the poet re runs, anywhere in the world that is, houses of antiquity activities and specialized in demolition junk, looking for all sorts of objects, from doors and windows to figureheads, sextants, lanterns, bells, anchors, snails. Every object has a story reminds. "Does not look like Stalin" asks, pointing to the bust of Henry Morgan southern filibuster that hangs on a wall, the dining room of Isla Negra. "An antique dealer in Paris, I do not want to sell, but when he heard that I was asked if I knew Chilean Pablo Neruda. That was how I got to sell it. "
in Isla Negra, near the sea (a recurrent element in his poems SIA), is where Neruda, the" land sailor, and Matilda, his third wife ("Patojo" as he affectionately calls the "muse" to whom he dedicated many love poems) have this laid down their permanent residence.
Tall, stocky, balding, olive complexion, its most distinctive features are a prominent nose and brown eyes, large and lethargic. His movements are deliberate, but firm. Sup ported in a rustic wooden stick covered with a poncho over Argentina, usually take long walks with his two shows. Chat with melodious voice, but without affectation. "His is a very particular tone, meaty and a literacy ma-wrote endless Chilean José Santos González Vera. You get used to his voice and re-read his verses feels ... Hearing on Indian memories came Nerudian accent. "
Neruda like getting your friends and always have a place in the table for last-minute guest. Usually served in the bar, which is entered from a terrace overlooking the sea, passing through a small corridor. On the floor of the corridor there is an old Victorian bidet body of wind on the windows, on rows of shelves, a collection of bottles of all shapes and colors. The bar, with large windows overlooking the sea, is decorated with lamps and marine paintings, the furniture, like a boat, are fixed on the ground. The ceiling is crossed by beams rauli, in each the "poet Carpenter" wrote in chalk the names of their dead friends and that ridos: Federico (García Lorca), Paul Eluard, Alberti, Miguel Hernández, Ortiz de Zarate ..., which were then etched into the wood "Rafiki ... the poet of the car carpentry." A photograph of Twiggy extends from the entrance arch to the ground. On one wall there are two posters, works of their adversaries. In one, brought from a trip to Caracas, the statement said. "Neruda, go home" in another (the cover of a magazine ar Argentina), under the photograph says: "Neruda, why not suicide?" Behind the counter on the shelf liquors, is announced: "He does not trust." Neruda prepares all kinds of drinks for his guests while he only takes whiskey or wine. Account that is accustomed to drinking whiskey during his years as consul in India, where was the cheapest drink. Meals are typically
Chile. Some of them have been mentioned by Neruda in his poetry: a stew of eel, a fish covered with a delicate tomato sauce and shrimp, a meat pie. Wine, Chilean always, is sometimes served in a porcelain jar in the form of a bird that sings when it is poured. During the summer, lunch on the veranda overlooking the garden entrance which highlights "The steam engine: So powerful, so triguero, as procreative and whistling and roaring and thundering!. I want it because it looks like Walt Whitman. "
usually read their poems to friends. A noon at the bar, read the poem "Meditation on the Sierra Maestra", from his book Song of Gesta. "This poem autobiographical and political," he said is supposed to have been written in 2000 d. BC, when it has completed the American Revolution. The poem Empie za back then and our era. "After reading pro put celebrate the day with a" happening. " For this occasion pre stopped, with cherries and white sparkling wine, a drink that we sat in a small boat, Marval de Isla Negra, which is on the lawn of the terrace facing the sea. With us were the Solimano, old friends who hid in his house in 1948 Neruda was wanted by the police because in his famous pamphlet "J'accuse", Neruda had criticized hard mind before the Senate Gabriel González Videla, then presi dent of Chile ... Neruda
For there is no dividing line between his poetry and politics. As said in accepting the presidential nomination: "Nun ca I conceived my life as divided between poetry and politics ... I am a Chilean who throughout the century has known the miseries and difficulties of our national existence and has participated in each of the pains and joys of people. I am a member of a group of workers who repaired his rough days TierOne between the center and south of the territory. I was never with the powerful and always felt that my vocation and my job was to serve the people of Chile with my actions and my poetry. I have lived singing it and defending it. "
talks that make up our interview conducted in short sessions. In the morning, after taking tough Ne breakfast in your room, we met at the library in a new wing of the house. I waited while he answered his correspondence, he composed a poem or correcting the galleys of a new edition of his book Twenty Chilean poet over love and a desperate song, first published in 1924, and which has sold more than two million. The new poems are written with green ink in a notebook. You can compose a long poem in a short time by making only minor corrections. Then Homero Arce, his secretary and friend for over fifty years, the poems transcribed by typewriter. Used to meet to work on "the shack", a small room in the library. Neruda, slowly, he answered my questions as if talking to himself. The only time I saw him was when his niece impatient Alicia Urrutia interrupted, at the time he was passionately describing the history of Chile, Ciarlo announced that he had an urgent phone call. (The only phone of Island Black is in the tavern, about five minutes walk from the house.)
In the evenings, after his daily siesta, sitting on a stone co ban faces the sea, Neruda spoke holding in his hands the microphone the recorder, which collected, in addition more than his voice, "the voice of the sea" that "echoes an old fighter" who "sings and bangs" that "does not agree."
Why did you change your name and why you chose the Pablo Neruda?
I can not remember what it is. I was 13 or 14 years. I remember my father was very annoyed that I wrote, with the best of intentions, because he thought that writing would lead to the destruction of the family and myself, and, especially, it would take to complete uselessness. That is, he had his domestic reason to do so, why not weighed heavily on me in my vocation. And one of the first defensive measures I took was to change my name.
Neruda chose "the Czech poet Jan Neruda?
does not seem to have known the name of the poet che co. Now that those years I read a short story about him. I've never read his poetry. But he has a book called Tales of Mala Strana, the humble folk tales in that quarter of Prague.
We may have gone hence my new name. As I say, the fact is so far in my memory that re not sane. However, the Czechs consider me one of them, as part of their country.
Since that time I have a very friendly relationship with the Czechs.
Did you know that Paul in Hebrew means "he who says beautiful things?
Are you sure about that? Paul must be the other, the com Draper Christ.
Is this your first presidential campaign?
I have accompanied the leftist candidate for president in his tours around the country. I went with Don Pedro Aguirre Cerda in 1938. It was the triumph of the Popular Front, the first leftist government has been in the history of this country. There was the communists, radicals, socialists, etc. Since then I have continued to accompany the other candidates cough on tour. The Socialist Party's current candidate, Sal vador Allende, has made three previous seasons in which there has emerged victorious. I've joined in the three presidential campaigns throughout the country, from Arica to beyond the Strait of Magellan.
Is this your first presidential campaign for Pablo Neruda?
The first and last.
Who are the political poets who aspired for president and won?
Our time is a time of poets rulers, Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Min (in English). It is clear that Mao Tse-tung has other qualities, as you know, is a great swimmer, which I lack. There is also a great poet who is president of an African republic (Senegal), Leopold Senghor, and there is another who writes in French, a surrealist poet, who is mayor of Fort de France, Martinique, Aimé Césaire. The poets have spoken in my country always in politics. We have never had a poet president. In Latin America, inhabitants do writers who have been presidents. A great writer Venezuelan Zolan, Rómulo Gallegos, was President of the Republic of Venezuela.
How does your presidential campaign?
In general, the type of acts we're doing in this campaign starts in the large urban centers of San tiago, especially in large townships where hundreds of thousands of people. Place a stage where one goes. First there are presented folk songs, then command a person explains the extent strictly political tico of our campaign. My pitch to talk to ordinary people is much broader and less organized, more poetic tone. Term almost always reading poetry. If you do not read poetry, people would be disappointed. Of course, also want to also hear my political thinking, but do not abuse the economic or political party because I think they also have need for another kind of language.
That has occurred in the United States with Norman Mailer and Eugene McCarthy.
I did not know. I've always admired the old troubadours and among American poets Carl Sandburg, who played guitar and read his poems. I like that much. Had wanted to do it myself, but I have heard so musical simo pé do not even know sing the melody easier. I have been denied the gift, but what I would like to have it.
How people react when you read his poems?
I always I have great confidence in the people and the Chilean people know me a lot. I have to say I qui re in an exciting manner. I could not tell the details because it would be many. React nicely, in such a manner that I can hardly get in or out of some sites. They have to wear a special guard to protect me from the embraces of people because they rush around me. This happens to me everywhere.
Do not need bodyguards?
No, this is not the duty to protect me from an attack, but the contrary. For example, entering the car is a great difficulty for Matilde and me, because the crowd pushes us back and forth, Forbidding, with effusion, freedom of movement.
Is there a fear of physical attack?
No, that fear does not exist, or for candidates or for presidents. Our presidents walk unescorted in the streets every day.
Is there a possibility of a unit on the left?
Yes, we will have within a week.
Do you think that will be chosen?
I do not think I do not know either. We are too few people in the political sense, and are willing to withdraw my candidacy for the sake of unity. The important thing is the unity of the people because otherwise there is no chance of victory. Here, Left parties, if they are separate to the election can not afford the great strengths of the traditional right, which has strongly supported a candidate, economic and economically. And the other candidate, the Christian Democrats, is the official candidate of the ruling party. Are powerful things. Is, first, money, and then an official candidate can be helped directly by the government. Only a great movement that unites all sectors of the left can win over these two candidates.
What would be his first acts if elected president?
is written in a program that all candidates have signed the left. It's very long show, but it is certainly nationalize the country's natural resources. This country has the largest copper mine in the world, Chuquicamata, and American property. The telephone company is American, the power company is American. The Chileans, when we turn on the light every night, we are paying some shareholders who are in New York or Detroit who do not know that there are Chileans. I do not mean a tragic, because it is rather comical. In 1970, almost reaching the year 2000, this system of colonialism persists, it's amazing. The nationalizations are common sense measures to me and I believe that Americans are waiting.
But the country, is ready to take over these companies?
As all these things have changed, the problems have been overcome, and we know that this will happen. Why do things in a way that we fight all? Everything should talk, report, deal with, but can not be transferred. Many companies in this country have paid all investments and technicians for a long time. For example, in our large copper mines have very little U.S. personnel. Some is not even five.
technical Are?
are some that are technical, but all over Chile because technicians do industries are very old and the Chileans have extensive expertise. If you mean an economic reprisals, are no longer in time of economic retaliation. You have to understand the imperialist countries has passed the era of empires and that neither economic nor political repression sense in our time. We must seek, though painful, these measures, understanding. That is, we do not want, because we rationalize na mine, a break with the U.S. government nor the United States, No. We must continue to understand, and understand better the economic and everything else on the basis of respect mutual political and economic.
If he became president, would press freedom?
course there is an agreement, a popular government program go that guarantees press freedom. Our popular government would be made from a combination of matches, ie be a multi-party government, which Dad says the diversity and richness of the experience of each of the popular movements. We guarantee that the government program in freedom of press and opinion.
Do you feel prepared economically, politically and socially for the office of the presidency?
As I said, this fee and our program is a antipersonalist. This is a government do cole status adopted and collective. No shortage of technicians and specialists for each subject. Does not depend on the president knows more or less. Of course that can be neither ignorant nor a fool. Nor can it be a monarch who has everything is done, all that is auspicious. No, a president in modern times has to have counselors, have to be specialists, and they abound in our country. This is written in our program. Monitoring the have the same popular forces that make the program that has promised the people of Chile. So this side I have no fear. In the unlikely event that I were elected I have no personal problem about this. There seems to me that because I am a poet is predestined to not be president. I do not think that is a very nice thing to be president of the Democratic Republic, but poets can govern with the same rights as engineers, or industrial, or lawyers, or politicians, or military, who so often have usurped power for good or bad. Anyway, I think a poet also has the right to believe it can fulfill its duties to its people and the feeling of love and justice that at least should have all the poets.
In 1933, one of his letters to the Argentinean writer Héctor Eandi he said: "Politically we can not be now but Munist or anti-co. Other doctrines have been demobilized ronando and falling. "What doctrines are concerned?
not remember that letter, but I guess I was referring to the anarchist doctrines that were so important in a time of my life.
That thought, is valid today?
The same thought has in some ways, I could not say as dogmatically as in my youth, but more or less. Always mean anti-reactionary thinking though apolitical view or leftism.
Does the Communist Party many converts among the youth? Many
. Communist Youth passes at this time for the highest boom period in the history of our party. Only in Santiago has more than 25,000 adherents.
MAPU What? (United Popular Action Movement)
The MAPU is a fraction of the Christian Democrats. Are those of the Catholic left, a small party that is just beginning to act in politics. They have separated the Christian Democratic Party recently. Esting are very interesting politically. Then there are the leftist groups.
Are these the most stubborn?
These tend to terrorism and direct action. Are survivors of the old anarchist and also have to do with the movements world youth of this era.
What do you think of these movements?
I am having a principle of great physical health. It is important that youth feel rebellious. Now, if this re beldi action channeled youthful individualistic, personal, di straight, unconnected with the organizations, detached from the people, mostly detached from the working class, then goes wrong. If this juven tude after their rebellion tends to understanding the labor movement and growth of large organizations on the left, then fine. What do I think? Many of these youngsters who are not a lot, at least in this country are young people from universities, often from wealthy families, of the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie more prosperous These young, not many, as I say, ever achieved. integrate with other popular forces. Otherwise they will move from the extreme left to the right to be champions, champions of conservatism, of the bourgeoisie. Because this pendulum swing of youth has always existed. I come from a generation where we were all anarchists. Anarchist books translated when he was 16. French translated to Kropotkin, Jean Grave and other anarchist writers. Read only the great Russian writers of such anarchic, as Andreyev et al. At that time, we, young anarchy tees, we begin to discover for ourselves that it was essential unity with the people's movement, which at that time was also an anarchist tendency. It was the time of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), and almost all trade unions belonged to this trend, which I represented Harry Bridges, one of the last in the U.S.. This group of anarchists who had Sacco and Vanzetti as martyrs in the U.S., also in Latin America had great im portance. But what happened to the youth of the time to participate even par and was preaching terrorism, as I did, sabotage, boycott the elections, opposition to organized movements mo? What happened? Some understood that our path was in the organization, was next to the mo labor movement, and others went directly to serve the interests of the big bourgeoisie, capitalism and imperialism. Over time can also repeat these phenomena. This youth or will join the popular movement or be integrated into the enemy's movement.
Could not form a new independent front?
Independent of what? "From the proletariat? I think not. In any case it's a divisive front would have no place, since they are very large the other movements for one more or any small groups come to be important.
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