For many, the sea has been the source of awe, fear, and wonder, and sometimes a lifetime of devotion. Such was the case for Pablo Neruda, and he never veered far from it. Neruda lived the last 20 years of his life in a house perched above the Pacific, called Isla Negra. With the sea as a daily presence, he referred to himself as an armchair sailor.

Although collections of Neruda’s works abound, On the Blue Shore of Silence is the first to separate his poems on the sea. With English translations by his favored translator, Alastair Reid, and stunning paintings from the artist Mary Heebner, who traveled to Isla Negra so that she too could visit the source, On the Blue Shore of Silence is a new cornerstone in Neruda’s body of work, bringing together poet, artist, and reader.

 

Pablo Neruda (1904-73), one of the most renowned poets of the twentieth century, was born in Parral, Chile. He shared the World Peace Prize with Paul Robeson and Pablo Picasso in 1950, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.

Alastair Reid is a poet, a prose writer, a translator, and a traveler. He has published more than thirty books -- poems, prose chronicles, translations -- and has translated the work of many Latin American writers, Borges and Neruda in particular.

Mary Heebner is a visual artist whose paintings and artists books are in several collections, museums and libraries internationally.

Audio segment - Lynn Neary, NPR interview with Alastair Reid, April 5, 2004