Pablo Neruda Poems That Were Never Published To Appear In New Book On Anniversary Of Poet’s Birthday

Spanish publishing house Seix Barral will release a volume of more than 20 previously unpublished poems by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda after the manuscripts were found in a drawer at the Neruda Foundation Library, according to EFE. The publishing house says the book will be published at the end of 2014 in Latin America and at the beginning of 2015 in Spain, to correspond with the 110th anniversary of the poet’s birthday and 90th anniversary of the release of “20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair,” Neruda’s best-known work.

Seix Barral wrote in its announcement that with the certification of authorship performed on the poems “makes them the greatest discovery in Spanish letters in recent years, a literary achievement of universal importance.” EFE notes that the poems to appear in the new volume were written after “Canto General” (1950), during a period largely seen as the most fruitful of Neruda’s life. Only two new volumes of the poet’s work have been published posthumously, in 1980 and 1996 -- both of work from his youth and adolescence.

The news comes as an investigation by Chile’s medical legal service continues on the question of Neruda’s mysterious death in 1973 -- the official cause is cancer, but Neruda’s longtime driver says he believes the poet was injected with poison while in the hospital. The Associated Press reported this weekend that judge Mario Carroza, who is heading the investigation, has ordered more tests on the poet’s cadaver -- exhumed in April 2013 for the purposes of the inquiry -- after initial forensic tests on Neruda’s bones revealed no trace of suspicious substances.