Later years

In 1952 the political situation in Chile once again became favourable, and Neruda was able to return
home. By that time his works had been translated into many languages. Rich and famous, he built a
house on Isla Negra, facing the Pacific Ocean, and also maintained houses in Santiago and
Valparaíso. While traveling in Europe, Cuba, and China, Neruda embarked upon a period of
incessant writing and feverish creation. One of his major works, Odas elementales (Elemental
Odes), was published in 1954. Its verse was written in a new poetic style—simple, direct, precise,
and humorous—and it contained descriptions of everyday objects, situations, and beings (e.g., “Ode
to the Onion” and “Ode to the Cat”). Many of the poems in Odas elementales have been widely
anthologized. Neruda’s poetic output during these years was stimulated by his international fame
and personal happiness; 20 books of his appeared between 1958 and his death in 1973, and 8 more
were published posthumously. In his memoirs, Confieso que he vivido (1974; Memoirs), Neruda
summed up his life through reminiscences, comments, and anecdotes.
In 1969 Neruda campaigned for the leftist candidate Salvador Allende, who appointed him
ambassador to France after being elected president of Chile. While already ill with cancer in France,
Neruda in 1971 learned that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. After traveling to
Stockholm to receive his prize, he returned to Chile bedridden and terminally ill and survived by
only a few days his friend Allende, who died in a right-wing military coup.