A lo lejos alguien canta

1927 was a critical period in Pablo Neruda’s life. At the time, he was assigned to a diplomatic post in Rangoon. He was a promising poet and a young diplomat hungry to see the world. Southeast Asia represented a season of solitude that he alleviated with his marriage to Maruca, with whom he would have his only daughter. The girl would die at an early age. In this region, he envisaged Residencia en la tierra ( Residence on Earth , 1933). Through the letters to his friend Héctor Eandi and his travel chronicles, we learn the inner landscapes that occupied Neruda’s creative mind. A memorable poem written in this period is “El tango del viudo” (“Widower’s Tango”), which describes his tempestuous relationship with Josie Bliss. This period has been revisited lately due to the confession of a sexual assault of a young Tamil woman under his service expressed in his memoirs.