I have benefited from countless chats with Neruda scholars and critics, from the late Robert Pring-Mill to his biographer in English, Adam Feinstein. Over many years, I have taught classes on all aspects of Neruda, but concentrating on the Neruda I still read with enthusiasm, the great and dark poems up to the 1940s. Jean Franco set me on my way when I was an undergraduate, as did reading Neruda in translation in Evergreen Review. I heard Neruda recite his poems on two occasions in London so I can follow his voice while I read his later work. I bumped into him, conversing with Octavio Paz in a private hotel in Sloane Square, London, even though they were still not speaking to each other, and later visited Isla Negra.

My triple aim is to introduce Neruda to new readers, to rescue him from his complete works and to debate with more skilled and critical readers, aware that there is a Neruda claque, to which I do not belong, and that the secondary writing on him is massive. I tend to agree with Ilan Stavans that ‘little is actually readable’ and realise that my interpretative prose may jar with the poems. To write about a great poet in another language and culture, however well I may know Spanish and Hispanic poetry, is an added risk, so I have added my own literal translations of the poems cited, while including an appendix on Neruda's translations into English, with the odd comments on the quality of translation throughout my text. When his and his critics’ prose is literal, I have translated it without too much loss. I have inserted abbreviated bibliographic details in the footnotes and full ones in the bibliography, unless the citation is local and then it is full in the note.

I would like to thank the Fundación Pablo Neruda for permission to cite from his works, Professor Stephen Hart for suggesting the book, and Ellie Ferguson and the publishers for their careful tidying of my typescript.