Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Parral, Chile, under the name Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. In his lifetime, Neruda wrote nearly thirty volumes of poetry and prose, among them Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (1924), Residencia en la tierra (1933), Canto General (1950), and Odas elementales (1954). Actively political, Neruda spent a number of years abroad as an honorary Consul and served in the Chilean Senate as a member of the Communist Party until his expulsion and exile in 1947. Neruda returned to Chile in 1952 when the political climate relaxed, maintaining his commitment to public service and devotion to poetry until his death of leukemia in Santiago, Chile, days after the Fascist coup of September 1973.