Biography: Pablo Neruda

Learn With Nina — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 20:35:48 +0000

Pablo Neruda was the pen name of Chilean poet Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Pablo Neruda was born in Chile in 1904 in a small town called Parral some 350 km south of the capital Santiago. His mother died shortly after his birth and his father remarried and moved the family.

Neruda composed his first poems at age 10. Although his father was not supportive, he received encouragement from others and published his first work at the age of 13. It was an essay entitled Entusiasmo y perseverancia under his own name. It was not until the mid-1920s that Neruda began to use his pen name which was inspired by the Czech poet Jan Neruda.

At the age of 16, Neruda moved to Santiago to pursue further studies but found himself focusing more on poems that his French studies. At 18, Neruda published his collection titled Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. This collection is still popular today. Unfortunately, his success on the international level did not guarantee him money and he lived a life of poverty for many years. To enable himself to survive he took on government jobs in far-off posts such as Burma and India.

In his government post, Neruda moved to Spain just in time to experience the Spanish Civil War. These experiences converted Neruda into an ardent communist for the rest of his life. The majority of his works in the 1930s and 40s reflect his passion for this cause. Pablo Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 two years before his death from prostate cancer.

Click here to find a link to some of Neruda’s love poems in both Spanish and English.

Biography – Rigoberta Menchú (in Spanish)

Learn With Nina — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 21:17:59 +0000

I have had many requests from students to publish something in their target language. So this month my blog is a biography written in Spanish about the social activist Rigoberto Menchú. This extraordinary woman came from a poor background as an indigenous person in Guatemala. She suffered greatly at the hands of the military during the Guatemalan Civil War. She went on to learn the Spanish language, write a best-selling book, win a Nobel Peace Prize and tour the world giving speeches on behalf of the United Nations. The words in bold are included in a glossary below the reading to help with understanding.

Rigoberta Menchú nació el 9 de enero de 1959 en Uspantán, Guatemala. Su familia era grande y sus familiares eran campesinos. Ella es una persona indígena del grupo Quiché-Maya. Su padre fue activista en la defensa de las tierras y los derechos indígenas mientras su madre fue comadrona para las comunidades en zonas rurales. Rigoberta conoce desde muy pequeña la discriminación, la pobreza y la injusticia.

Casi toda su familia fue asesinada por el ejército durante la guerra civil de Guatemala que tuvo lugar entre 1962 y 1996. Ella huyó a Méjico en 1981 y empezó una carrera como defensora de los derechos humanos. En 1992 ganó el Premio Nobel de la Paz. Ella era la ganadora más joven y la primera persona indígena en ganarla.

En 1984 publicó el libro Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú. El libro fue basado en las experiencias de su vida y relata las atrocidades cometidas contra la gente indígena durante la guerra civil de Guatemala, especialmente bajo los órdenes del general Efraín Montt. Unas personas tomaron la novela por una autobiografía algo que causó una controversia.

Regresó a Guatemala en 1988 y en 2007 y otra vez en 2011 Menchú era candidata en las elecciones presidenciales. Hoy en día trabaja como embajadora de buena voluntad para la UNESCO.

campesinos = poor country people, indígena = indigenous, la tierra = land, los derechos = rights,una comadrona = midwife, pobreza = poverty, casi = almost, el ejército =military, huyó (huir) =she fled (to flee), embajadora = embassador, buena voluntad =good will

Nobel Prize – Nina Schmidt ~ Vancouver German and Spanish Lessons

Biography: Pablo Neruda

Biography – Rigoberta Menchú (in Spanish)