2024-03-06 00:05:32
In 2011, an alternative story began to emerge: Neruda was murdered. The prosecution began with Manuel Araya, Neruda’s driver and Communist Party member. On the day of Neruda’s death, Araya told the Mexican magazine Proceso that he and Matilde drove home from the clinic to pick up some personal items. While at home, Neruda called and urged them to come back immediately, because the doctor had injected a substance into his stomach while he slept. When they arrived, Araya said, they saw a red spot on his stomach. Then another doctor asked Araya to drive to a pharmacy to get some medicine. On the way, military forces kidnapped him, tortured him, and held him for weeks. Neruda died hours following Araya left the clinic.
Based on Araya’s testimony, the Communist Party and four of Neruda’s nephews and nieces requested an investigation. It was presided over by Judge Mario Carroza Espinosa in secret proceedings, in accordance with the old Chilean Code of Criminal Procedure, which was still applied to human rights cases from that period. In April 2013, at Carrozza’s request, Neruda’s remains were exhumed to be examined for poison. Since then, three teams of forensic experts have made different conclusions. The first examination was conducted by experts from Chile, the United States and Spain, who concluded in November 2013 that there was no forensic evidence to suggest a cause of death other than metastatic cancer. The second was also conducted by international experts, including in Denmark and Canada, who found traces of “Clostridium botulinum” bacteria, a deadly bacteria, in one of Neruda’s molars.
The rest of the evidence collected during the investigation, which lasted twelve years, is circumstantial.
Those who support the poisoning theory cite the case of former President Eduardo Frei, who became an opponent of Pinochet and died in 1982, in the same clinic. Fry’s death was attributed to complications from a medical procedure, until a judge ruled in 2019 that he had been poisoned. However, both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court later rejected the ruling. It was concluded that death resulted from medical complications.
Judge Paola Plaza, who took up the case a few years ago, investigated human rights abuses from the Pinochet era and sat on the appeals court that overturned Frey’s ruling. Last September, the investigation into Neruda was closed, but his relatives and the Communist Party filed a petition to reopen the case. The truth regarding his death does not depend on a judicial ruling. But for many, “Neruda is a martyr to the dictatorship, whether he was poisoned or not,” said Raul Zurita, another great Chilean poet.
However, the same cannot be said for Neruda’s legacy and reputation. His love poems are still assigned reading in Chilean schools, and his works are regularly included in Latin American literature programs around the world. His books are available in forty-two languages, according to Fernando Saez, executive director of the Pablo Neruda Foundation, which manages his estate. Saez said that new editions of his works have recently been published in Spain and France, and an illustrated edition of “Twenty Love Poems” has just been published in China.
But the way Neruda’s work is read has changed radically. Zurita said his life now is “like a black thread flowing along with the brightness of his work.” Ignacio Lopezcalvo, a professor at the University of California, said his students confront him regarding teaching the poet’s work. How does he feel regarding Nirodh’s behavior towards women and his daughter? “I say I found him appalling,” he told me, “but we need to read his work.” Writer Isabel Allende, a relative of the late president and a women’s rights advocate, agreed. “Like many young feminists in Chile, I am disgusted by some aspects of Neruda’s life and personality,” she told The Guardian a few years ago. “However, we cannot reject his writings.”
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