<P> From "Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon", Selected Poems translated by Stephen Mitchell (1997) </P> <P> While in Mexico, Neruda also published his lengthy epic poem Canto General, a Whitmanesque catalog of the history, geography, and flora and fauna of South America, accompanied by Neruda's observations and experiences . Many of them dealt with his time underground in Chile, which is when he composed much of the poem . In fact, he had carried the manuscript with him during his escape on horseback . A month later, a different edition of five thousand copies was boldly published in Chile by the outlawed Communist Party based on a manuscript Neruda had left behind . In Mexico, he was granted honorary Mexican citizenship . Neruda's 1952 stay in a villa owned by Italian historian Edwin Cerio on the island of Capri was fictionalized in Antonio Skarmeta's 1985 novel Ardiente Paciencia (Ardent Patience, later known as El cartero de Neruda, or Neruda's Postman), which inspired the popular film Il Postino (1994). </P> <P> By 1952, the González Videla government was on its last legs, weakened by corruption scandals . The Chilean Socialist Party was in the process of nominating Salvador Allende as its candidate for the September 1952 presidential elections and was keen to have the presence of Neruda, by now Chile's most prominent left - wing literary figure, to support the campaign . Neruda returned to Chile in August of that year and rejoined Delia del Carril, who had traveled ahead of him some months earlier, but the marriage was crumbling . Del Carril eventually learned of his affair with Matilde Urrutia and he sent her back to Chile in 1955 . She convinced the Chilean officials to lift his arrest, allowing Urrutia and Neruda to go to Capri, Italy . Now united with Urrutia, Neruda would, aside from many foreign trips and a stint as Allende's ambassador to France from 1970 to 1973, spend the rest of his life in Chile . </P> <P> By this time, Neruda enjoyed worldwide fame as a poet, and his books were being translated into virtually all the major languages of the world . He vigorously denounced the United States during the Cuban missile crisis and later in the decade he likewise repeatedly condemned the U.S. for its involvement in the Vietnam War . But being one of the most prestigious and outspoken left - wing intellectuals alive, he also attracted opposition from ideological opponents . The Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-communist organization covertly established and funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, adopted Neruda as one of its primary targets and launched a campaign to undermine his reputation, reviving the old claim that he had been an accomplice in the attack on Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 . The campaign became more intense when it became known that Neruda was a candidate for the 1964 Nobel Prize, which was eventually awarded to Jean - Paul Sartre . </P>

Pablo neruda and it was at that age