Spanish Books Books

El relato de Elizabeth, permite no solo acompañarla en su viaje a través de Europa, Africa e Indonesia por un año, sino ser además testigo de lo que suele acontecer dentro de la cabeza y en el espiritu de mujeres de este tiempo. Nos vamos formando para ser exitosas, para vivir vidas emocionantes. La falta de propósitos más profundos nos llevan a decisiones cortoplacistas y descentradas. Sublevarnos entonces contra nosotras mismas y decidirnos a cambiar nuestro rumbo se convierte en una travesía como la de Elizabeth, dolorosa y larga, en la que el verdadero propósito es alejarnos de la persona que nos fuímos convirtiendo y dejar que aflore un ser, con un centro mejor establecido que nos permita empezar de nuevo y ser capaces de tomar decisiones y caminos diferentes.

Este libro es para cualquier mujer, de cualquier edad y condición, porque todas encontrarán en él algo con lo que identificarse.
Gilbert aborda con cierto humor y con inteligencia temas como el amor y el desamor, la vida, el éxito, el fracaso, la espiritualidad, el auto-conocimiento y mucho más.

This book is amazing. I bought it cause one person in my family is going through something similar and it has really helped me to give her advice. I haven't finish the book but i can't stop reading it. Definitely something that happens to many women.

Con humor y realismo Elizabeth Gilbert explora su esencia espiritual llevando al lector a encontrarse con ella cara a cara en su camino. Cada mujer que lee este libro puede identificarse con muchas de las experiencias de crecimiento personal y espiritual. Esta es una comedia divina que todas vivimos y pocas podemos articular.

Esta buenisimo, son consejos muy practicos que todos debemos hacer como propios. Cuando se nos presenta un tema de discucion en especial con nuestra pareja, Yo los he puesto en practica y han dado buenisimos resultados. Yo les recomiendo ampliamente este CD.

He leido ya varios libros de Carlos C. Sanchez y sin duda alguna tiene una forma maravillosa de hacernos enterder que podemos ser mejores seres humanos. Mejores compañeros matrimonial. mejores esposos/as.
gracias Carlos C.

Este es un gran CD que te emotiva y te ayuda en tu vida familiar.A mi en lo personal me ayudo mucho con mi pareja .Carlos sin duda es un gran escritor y este CD es como un resumen de loque ya ha escribido en sus libros. Buenisimo

Este libro me a servido bastante, y todavia me quedan los capitulos finales por leer.
La verdad que te llama la atencion a poner cuidado detalles que no son tan "detalles" como pensamos, sino mas bien cosas que uno pasa por alto en el trato con los demas. Por ejemplo, te olvidas de mirar a los ojos a la persona, el poder de decir el nombre de la gente, o dar la mano medio floja al cliente que llega a tu oficina, y tantos otros. Es un libro para la vida diaria. En el trabajo y la casa ya me ha dado muy buenos resultados... para descubrir nuevas maneras de mejorar las relaciones (de pareja, profesional, amista) y/o refrescar las olvidadas, este libro por lo menos a mi, me esta dando una buena mano.

Todo es muy aprovechable, util y conciso, como se suele decir: "va directo al grano". Es una perpectiva cristiana, por lo cual, el autor suele referir a las Escrituras para aclarar sus puntos, asi como tambien a conocimientos de la sicologia y la sociologia. Una lectura accesible, agradable, con abundante ejemplos de la vida real. Tambien contiene graficos para que uno pueda entender mejor, algunas fotografias, y ejercicios o preguntas de reflexion al final de cada capitulo (son 19 capitulos).

En definitiva, me gusto es muy completo para la cantidad de paginas. No es un tratado profundo, ni extenso (son 120 paginas), pero lo que tiene esta muy bien aprovechado. Lo recomiendo, sea para regalo o para el crecimiento personal

Primera recomendación, ¡No se deje engañar por el arte no tan atractivo de la tapa del libro! Los mejor está adentro... por lo menos en el caso del presente.

"Como Relacionarse Mejor" es un trabajo que está equilibrado entre la razón, el sentir y la fe. Es una tematica complicada, pero el autor sabe cómo ir "directo al grano" con delicadeza y autoridad en la materia. Su lectura me fue de enorme beneficio (familiar, matrimonial y laboral). Contiene ejemplos de la vida real, que bien pudieran ser los de la vida de uno misma.

Contiene 19 capitulos, ordenado bajo tres secciones principales.

I)SECCION TEORICA: Aproximación a los factores básicos de las relaciones humanas. (Esta sección a mi parecer es por demás util, ya que fundamenta las siguientes dos secciones; no obstante, por ser la "teórica" es la menos practica... pero de todos modos lo lleva a pensar sobre usted mismo, a verse como en un espejo y reflexionar sobre su personalidad, sus rasgos, tanto como a discernir mejor a otros a su alrededor)

Los capitulos dentro de esta sección son:
1) concepto de personalidad humana,
2). personalidad y relaciones,
3). teorías sobre la personalidad,
4). la motivación humana,
5). motivación y necesidad social,
6). el poder de las emociones,
7). la dimension teológica.

II) SECCION PRACTICA: tecnicas que contribuyen al mejor desarrollo de las relaciones. (Esta sección es el corazón del trabajo, que tiene un fuerte enfasis en la comunicación y maneras practicas de mejorarla, de "cómo" funciona el asunto). Ramos seguido presenta varios puntos de vista, y sin ser demasiado dogmático, deja abiertas posibilidades para explorar y modificar las tecnicas).

Los capitulos en esta seccion son:
8). Tecnicas de comunicacion no verbal,
9). Mas comunicacion no verbal,
10). el habla como medio comunicativo,
11), tecnicas de lenguaje verbal,
12). sobre el habla conversacional,
13). cómo iniciar un dialogo?,
14). ¿como mantener un dialogo entretenido,
15).continuemos dialogando

III) SECCION TERAPEUTICA: como entender y superar las crisis en las relaciones dañadas. (Esta sección es algo así como, ¿Cómo proceder cuando se han dañado las relaciones que hubieramos podido mejorar o aún queremos mejorar. Terapia, refiere a sanidad, a curación, a remediar. Como las demas secciones, en cada capítulos se encuentran directivas, sugerencias utiles para la vida practica.

Los capitulos de esta seccion son:
16). los conflictos en las relaciones,
17). Actitudes y resolucion de conflictos,
18). Tecnicas de resolucion de conflictos,
19). Como evitar conflictos. Note, que contiene una bibliografía no menos importante al final del libro.

Al final del libro contiene las Notas y una Bibliografia que pudiera ser de gran ayuda para quienes desen continuar leyendo otros libros de referencia y profundizar más aún en el tema. -el presente no es una traduccion del inglés, pero me indigno con frecuencia, cuando a las traducciones al español, les quitan la bibliografía, como si los pueblos hispanos no las utilizaramos o no supieramos otros idiomas-

Una de mis partes favoritas son, "como hablarle a cualquier persona acerca de cualquier tema". Los he estado recomendado, con sincero gusto,y aca lo hago una vez mas. Suerte y disfrute su lectura.

Por el mismo autor.
Pulpito y Poesia: Recursos poeticos para la predicacion, la ensenanza y la devocion espiritual

este libro, hace revivir la fe del creyente , en que nada es imposible para Dios. Y hace que te maravilles de los milagros que el puede hacer en los lugares y con las personas mas inuscitadas. y te hace comprender, que a pesar de las manifestaciones lo mas importante de un avivamiento del Espiritu Santo, es el llamado a Santidad que este produce en tu vida. Y lo que este opere en tu corazón, para siempre.

Este libro inspira a cualquier cristiano y reconocer que Dios anhela manifestarse al mundo usando TU vida, por medio de portentos y milagros, de la misma manera que lo describe en Su Palabra. Este libro narra la historia de un nuevo creyente en Indonesia, que al ser visitado por El Espiritu Santo, comenzo a ver que Dios tenía grandes planes para su vida. Mel revive acontecimientos del libro de los Hechos y termina hablando frente a multitudes en Ingles (sin el jámas habelro estudiado)de como el amor de JESUS y la mano de Dios guardaron su vida para inspirar a todos los que leen su biografia.

Este libro muestra el poder del Espíritu Santo sobre la vida de aquellos que se someten a él. Milagros grandiosos e inimaginables sucedieron cuando llegó un avivamiento a Indonesia. Y los que se sometieron a Dios por completo comprobaron que Jesús no mintió al decir: "El que en mi cree, las obras que yo hago, él las hará también; y aun mayores hará..." Este libro lo recomiendo a cualquiera que quiera ver que grandemente Dios puede manifestarse a través de los que le aman.

The back cover of this small volume boasts a blurb, which proclaims, "Monterroso is certainly the leading living Guatemalan writer..." Not being quite an expert on Guatemalan literature myself, I cannot personally vouch for this statement. What I can swear to, however, is the fact that this compilation of writings by Augusto Monterroso is a collection of brilliant short fictions, which quickly call to mind the works of Swift, Sterne, Kafka, J.L. Borges, and Italo Calvino (among others). Reminiscent of Borges, Monterroso is a master of the self-referential (art about art/books about books); his fictions abound with tales of writers (and other story-tellers), readers, reviewers, critics, researchers, musicians, artists and historical figures who may or may not be "real." Like his predecessors, Monterroso's fictions often challenge our assumptions about literature and its conventions. He freely plays with the forms of fiction; there are "short-stories" disguised as letters, essays, and aphorisms. Several of his stories are shorter in length than the literary quotes he uses to introduce them. One of these, "The Dinosaur," (perhaps his most well-known work) is a mere 8 words long ("When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there."). In other instances, his fictions mirror the rambling nature of the spoken word itself, as they amble on and meander for 3 or 4 pages without a single bit of punctuation prior to the concluding period.
Like his (above mentioned) literary forbearers, Monterroso is a master of satire, irony, and the absurd. Resembling Swift ("A Modest Proposal"), Kafka, and Borges before him, Monterroso uses a precise, crisp and almost dispassionate writing style to put forth the most absurd and outrageous of fictions. In "Finished Symphony," for example, he casually relates having overheard in passing, someone tell of the discovery, and then destruction of the two lost movements of Schubert's great "Unfinished Symphony." In other instances, his irony can be directed at himself. "Leopoldo (His Labors)," for instance, is a short story about a reluctant short story writer who is eternally frustrated in his decades-long attempt to write his first short story. This entire piece of fiction is a virtuoso bit of satire upon the author, himself (and perhaps on all authors). And then, what could be more absurd, or more comically inspired than "Flies": "There are three themes; love, death, and flies...Let others deal with the first two. I concern myself with flies...In the beginning was the fly...It is easier for a fly to land on the nose of the Pope, than for the Pope to land on the nose of a fly...Oh, Melville, you had to sail the seas before you could finally set that great white whale on your desk in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, not realizing that Evil had long ago circled your strawberry ice cream..."
Monterroso is clearly one of the important figures in the development of modern and contemporary Latin-American fiction. Along with such writers as Bioy Casares, J.L. Borges, Gabriel Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Tomas Eloy Martinez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Cortazar (as well as Italo Calvino, Tomasso Landolfi, John Barth, and Milan Kundera), Monterroso is a brilliant exponent of "Magic Realism". If you admire any of the aforementioned authors, I would urge you to look into this dazzling collection by an inspired writer.

The back cover of this small volume boasts a blurb, which proclaims, "Monterroso is certainly the leading living Guatemalan writer..." Not being quite an expert on Guatemalan literature myself, I cannot personally vouch for this statement. What I can swear to, however, is the fact that this compilation of writings by Augusto Monterroso is a collection of brilliant short fictions, which quickly call to mind the works of Swift, Sterne, Kafka, J.L. Borges, and Italo Calvino (among others). Reminiscent of Borges, Monterroso is a master of the self-referential (art about art/books about books); his fictions abound with tales of the weaknesses and general absurdities of writers (and other story-tellers), bibliophiles, reviewers, critics, researchers, musicians, artists and other intellectual and historical figures who may or may not be "real." Like his predecessors, Monterroso's fictions often challenge our assumptions about literature and its conventions. He freely plays with the forms of fiction; there are short stories
"disguised" as letters, essays, and aphorisms. Several of his stories are far shorter in length than the literary quotes he uses to introduce them. One of these, "The Dinosaur," (perhaps his most well-known work) is a mere 8 words long ("When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there."). In other instances, his fictions mirror the rambling nature of the spoken word itself, as they amble on and meander for some 3 or 4 pages without a single bit of punctuation prior to the concluding period.
Like his (above mentioned) literary forbearers, Monterroso is a master of satire, irony, and the absurd. Resembling Swift ("A Modest Proposal"), Kafka, and Borges before him, Monterroso uses a precise, crisp and almost dispassionate writing style to put forth the most absurd and outrageous of fictions. In "Finished Symphony," for example, he casually relates having overheard in passing, someone tell of the discovery, and then destruction of the two lost movements of Schubert's great "Unfinished Symphony." In other instances, his irony can be self-deprecating. "Leopoldo (His Labors)," for instance, is a short story about a reluctant short story writer, who is eternally frustrated in his decades-long attempt to write his first perfect(and never finished)short story. This entire piece of fiction is a virtuoso bit of satire upon the author, himself (and perhaps on all authors). And what could be more absurd, or more comically inspired than "Flies": "There are three themes; love, death, and flies...Let others deal with the first two. I concern myself with flies...In the beginning was the fly...It is easier for a fly to land on the nose of the Pope, than for the Pope to land on the nose of a fly...Oh, Melville, you had to sail the seas before you could finally set that great white whale on your desk in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, not realizing that Evil had long ago circled your strawberry ice cream..."
Monterroso is clearly one of the important figures in the development of modern and contemporary Latin-American fiction. Along with such writers as Bioy Casares, J.L. Borges, Gabriel Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Tomas Eloy Martinez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Cortazar (as well as Italo Calvino, Tomasso Landolfi, John Barth, and Milan Kundera), Monterroso is a brilliant exponent of "Magic Realism". If you admire any of the aforementioned authors, I would urge you to look into this dazzling collection by an inspired writer.

Monterroso has a fantastatic sense of humor. I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

El alma no desaparece con la ausencia del cuerpo. Las hermosas palabras de Soraya reverberan con la belleza que sólo su corazón es capaz de impregnarle a la vida. Este libro respira su luz, su necesidad de vivir al máximo y su deseo de que el resto del planeta lo hiciera. Su sinceridad es el hilo conductor de cada idea y es esta honestidad la que llega tan dentro a quien lo lee. ¡¡Simplemente, precioso:)!!

This is a tremendously inspiring book about Hispanic-American singer-songwriter Soraya, who lost her life to breast cancer at age 37, in 2006. It's an incredibly inspiring memoir that has broken records for Spanish-language books. It is now available to order in English, with 100 extra pages of memories, filled with pictures and stories told by friends, family and fellow musicians. Through this alternate story we learn things the humble Soraya would not have said: that in the final years of her life she became a world-class humanitarian, and that she was one heck of a musician. Enjoy. Soraya: A Life of Music, A Legacy of Hope

A veces nos quejamos de un simple malestar o porque el dia por una tonteria no nos haya salido bien, pero una vez uno lee este libro, aparte de que cuando empiezas a leerlo no lo puedes dejar, es una gran enseñanza de que las cosas pequeñas que nos enfrentamos cada día son bien insignificantes. Hay que tener mucha fe y valor para pasar por lo que pasó Soraya y a la misma vez continuar viendo la vida de la maner que ella lo hizo. Este libro me enseño a que hay que darle la importancia a las cosas que realmente la tienen y dejarnos de darle importancia a las tonterias que nos pasan dia a dia. Lo recomiendo 100%, si todos actuaramos de la manera que ella lo hizo, poniendo su ejemplo en las cosas que nos toca vivir todos los dias, creo que tendriamos un mundo mejor. Que pena que personas como ella, de tanta fe y tanta perseverancia, tengan que dejarnos, quizas porque de esta manera han cumplido su proposito en la vida y nosotros podamos seguir su ejemplo. Gracias mil por este legado de esperanza.

Rafael Alberti (1902-1999) is one of the most notable poets of the 20th century. He is not nearly as well known as his friend Federico García Lorca and most of his work is still unavailable in English translation. City Lights has made an invalubable contribution in the effort to widen the availability of Alberti's work to English speaking readers. This collection from 1929, here in a bilingual version, is considered by many to be Alberti's greatest poetic achievement. Translator Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno set himself a monumental task and he comes through with dignity and grace. The brief introduction by noted Hispanist Ian Gibson (a Lorca specialist) is helpful and Alberti's autobiographical note (from 1955) is fascinating.
Critical inertia has set "Concernng The Angels" in a surrealist context, but the work is not at all exemplary of surrealist art nor does it reflect in any important ways significant surrealist influences. The collection is, rather, an immensely creative narrative of the redemptive value of imaginative art. Alberti, who two years after publishing this book began a life long engagement with the Communist Party and a commitment to political activism, here makes his best and most radical political statement. Read this book and discover what it is.

This book illustrates why City Lights Books is the most important tourist stop in San Francisco - they are the publishers of this excellent book. The Andalusian poet is a contemporary of Lorca, Dali etc. In his brief autobiographic note, he states that these poems were written at night in a frenzy. I believe him. At least three-quarters of the poems have a sense of being inspired rather than crafted i.e. as if they came as whole to the poet, i.e. as if they came directly from within as an expression of state-of-being rather than being created consciously by the artistic intellect.

Within the poems there is a significant variety in structure and tone although most share a sense of disorientation. There are very inventive images which absolutely fit in the poem although standing alone, that seems impossible. Throughout the poems there was only one image that jarred, one (to my mind) misplaced "piano". Some examples: "Ah yes. A suit of clothes went by / uninhabited, hollow" or "The earth was an enemy, / because it fled. / The sky an enemy, / because it never stopped."

This volume is bilingual - something I appreciate (or demand) in translations of poetry. It is a volume that bears reading and rereading in either or both languages.

Rafael Alberti's "Concerning the Angels" stands as not only one of the strongest & greatest collection of poems by a Spanish author in the twentieth century, but as the back cover states it is on par with other essential poetry books from all countries of the last century. Alberti's brief & poetic autobiographical statement at the beginning brings light to his mental state when he wrote the book in 1927-28. "What was I to do? How could I speak? How could I shout? How could I give form to that enmeshing tangle with which I was engaged in combat? How could I raise myself again from that catastrophic pit in which I had sunk? Submerging, burying myself more and more in my own ruins, covering myself up in my own rubble, with my insides torn, my bones splintered." Judging from the poems alone, one can tell that Alberti was in an anguished state. Alberti's recurrent idea of the soul in it's different conditions deserves to be examined closely & not be taken in a religious context, just as he informs us that, "the angels revealed themselves to me, not as Christian, bodily angels of the sort found in beautiful paintings or prints, but instead as irresistible forces of the spirit, maleable to the most turbid and secret states of my nature."


If people now find it hard to contemplate the notion of the soul in other than a strictly religious context, I have no reservations in stating this is one of the more lamentable effects of our consumer-driven society. As much as Alberti writes about the soul it is evident from these poems that he was witness to man's demoralization:

"body that for soul

had the void, nothing,"

"Ruined men, fixed,

in the wrecked cities,"

"Lost among equations, triangles, formulas and blue precipitates,

between bloody events, ruins and toppled crowns,

at the time of gold hunters and bank robberies,

in the tardy blush on the flat roofs

voices of angels anounced to you the casting off and loss of your soul."

Lorca brought "Concerning the Angels" with him to New York & was influenced by it while writing, "Poet in New York" esp. in his poems criticizing the greed of American capitalism. If capitalism & industrialized societies have offered us comfort & luxury, it has been enormously detrimental to our being, modern capitalism has turned people into exploitable objects with a dollar sign on everything. Beginning with Blake & Novalis, poets have been warning mankind about the negative effects of capitalism.


For Alberti physical death is preferable to anguish, especially after the loss of love. Rimbaud gave us a memorable definition of this when he wrote, "the only thing that is unbearable is that nothing is unbearable." The poet Ruben Dario writes of a different hope in death: "...Tell me that this horrible dread of agony which posesses me is my own wicked fault; that, dead, I will see the light of a new day, and then will hear you say, "Arise and walk!" Indeed, in extreme desperation what Alberti longs for more than anything else is either the void of death or a return to a state prior to becoming acquainted with love's disappointments. Usually this state assumes the form of childish innocence, but since this is more unlikely than the void of death, the most memorable lines of the book belong to the latter solution:

"Fly now from me, dark

Lucifer of quarries without dawn,

of wells without water

of caverns without sleep,

now, ember of the spirit,

sun,moon...

Oh, burn me!

More, more, yes, yes, more! Burn me!"

"Ugly one, sooty and muddy

I don't want to see you!

Before, you were snowy, gilded,

in a sled across my soul.

Ornamented pines. Slopes.

And now through the carriage houses,

of charcoal, filthy.

Out! Out! Away!"

"Always at counterlight,

never overtaken, alone,

soul alone...

Soul in pain:

lifeless brilliance,

you conquer."

In "Concerning the Angels" anguish usually appears in the form of mist, in fact three sections of the book bear the title, "Guests of the Mist", a line from G.A. Becquer, who Alberti dedicates one of the greatest poems of the entire book, "Three Remembrances of Heaven." This mist is the physical manifestation of Alberti's mental states, either completely obscuring anything colorful & promising or bringing back even more painful memories:

"Neither sun, moon, nor stars,

neither the unexpected green

of lightning or thunder

nor the breeze. Only mists."

Again the poem mirrors the conditions under which Alberti wrote them, "a creature of darkness, I began to write blindly at any hour of the night without putting on the light in my room."

We move with the poet through these skeins of mist, knowing all along, "to go to hell there is no need to change one's place or posture." Alberti keeps searching for what will eclipse his pain completely, the reason it is usually death he sees as the answer is because with every other solution, even a new love, there is the potential of old memories reappearing and throwing him back into extreme agony, what Alberti wants from death is to be cauterized not only from his present torments but from the painful memories as well. The poet's hope he puts into his death is, "there is always a last time after the fall of the wasteland, the advent of cold in forgetful dreams, and the tumbling down of death on the skeleton of nothingness." Alberti's conviction in the soul & his longing for the complete void of emotions that death promises may at first seem a paradox, but it is not. Only for someone who acknowledges the soul as something absolutely vital to living, as opposed to merely existing, would require death's permanence as a solution to their persistent agony, and the reason it is so intolerable is because it refuses to end. With "Concerning the Angels" Alberti has given us one of the most magnificent poetry collections, a veritable catharsis of the soul.

I was so happy when Condorito came out in book format finally. The only drawback is that there aren't more of these types of books out. Condorito is a beloved character and I am happy this fact was recognized with the release of this book in english and spanish.

Great fun to read. Better than the editions in Spanish.
I am looking forward for the following edition. You'll laugh along with Condorito and friends from the first page to the last one!

I've collected all the Condorito magazines since I remember and obviously I got this first book. It really is different than the other comics as it features shorter stories, but it still gives great laughs.
A must have for fans and and worthy read for non-fans.

Es un libro escrito por una verdadera experta en SEXOLOGÍA, y a mi me ayudó hasta para ilustrar a mi hijo mayor!
Realmente, hay que leer este libro, PORQUE NADIE SABE SUFICIENTE SOBRE LA FUNCIÓN SEXUAL, Y ESTA AUTORA SI SABE Y EXPLICA SENCILLAMENTE !

IN SEXOLOGY, wrote a book that is a GIFT for all of us.
Even those who believe they know all, WILL LEARN CLEAR, SCIENTIFIC FACTS ABOUT SEXOLOGY.
A marvelous book!

Se trata de un libro que nos enseña muchísimo, aunque nos las demos de que nos las sabemos todas !
No es un libro porno:Es un libro escrito por una verdadera experta en SEXOLOGÍA, y a mi me ayudó hasta para ilustrar a mi hijo mayor!
Realmente, hay que leer este libro, PORQUE NADIE SABE SUFICIENTE SOBRE LA FUNCIÓN SEXUAL, Y ESTA AUTORA SI SABE Y EXPLICA SENCILLAMENTE !

Autobiografía de Pablo Neruda donde el poeta nos cuenta lo cotidiano de su existencia. Es deslumbrante como el poeta convierte en mágico a través de sus metáforas poéticas los sucesos más cotidianos, la lluvia, el pasar del tren, los campesinos, el ruido del mar, etc. Esta claro que el poeta supo entender y disfrutar de cada momento de la vida más que cualquier un mortal normal. El lector puede introducirse y casi revivir los sentimientos de Neruda durante los momentos más importantes de su vida, su primer libro, sus amores, sus amigos, etc. En otra parte del libro nos hace conocer sus ideas comunistas extremas como por ejemplo que considera la Unión Soviética "el país de los sueños intentados y conseguidos", y su admiración por los líderes políticos comunistas.

Neruda's life highlighting the events that shaped his poetry and deep love for humanity. From his early childhood in his beloved and magical Chile through his experiences with love and politics, this beautiful and humorous book explores the poet's life in the most beautiful Spanish prose written in contemporary literature.

Pablo Neruda's "Memoirs" is not a comprehensive autobiographical document. It is a personal memoir, recounted as if the author was sitting around a table, with good friends and a bottle of excellent Chilean wine, telling tales of the people, anecdotes and incidents that were so important in his life. "Confieso Que He Vivido," means I confess that I have lived. And Sr. Neruda certainly did that...with zest, zeal and so much talent. I have read both this Spanish edition and the English edition, translated by Hardie St. Martin, which is a good one, but it does not do justice to Neruda's beautiful skill with the Spanish language. He romances the language, like no other, even with his prose. I am only sorry I do not feel secure enough in my knowledge of Spanish grammar to write this review in the beloved language of Neruda.

Neruda was born, the son of a railroad worker, in the then frontier wilderness of Southern Chile in 1904. He led a bohemian lifestyle, dressing in black "like the true poets of the last century," during his university years in Santiago. His shyness, the "kink in the soul,"...especially of women, took him a while to overcome. He describes the people and places of that period with great 'carino' (love). His political ideology began to form at that time also, and politics became an integral part of his writing. The Student Federation, student demonstrations and the subsequent repression, had a great impact on the young intellectual.

Neruda led a rich and fascinating life. World traveled throughout his life, he served as Chilean consul in Burma, Ceylon, and Java. He was the consul in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and during this time "Nine Love Poems" from "Veinte Poemas de Amor y Una Cancion Desesperada" was published. It was at this time also, that his friend Federico Garcia Lorca was killed. Neruda was present in Paris to organize a worldwide anti-Facist congress of writers that would be held in Madrid. His writing about Spain during the war is heartbreaking. Returning to Chile in 1938, he found a burgeoning Fascist movement in his own beloved land.

I particularly enjoyed his account of the time he spent in Mexico, as consul. He tells of his encounters with the great Mexican painters there.

After returning home, Neruda ran for political office and was elected to Chile's Senate in 1945. He was later removed from his Senate seat after joining the Communist Party.

His friends included: Garcia Lorca, Ehrenburg, Picasso, Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Octavio Paz, Miguel Angel Asturias, Gandhi, Nehru, Mao, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and most sadly, Salvador Allende.

Pablo Neruda's death, just weeks after the brutal murder of Chile's President Allende, is something I will never forget. I was living in Colombia at that time, and remember where I was and what I was doing when I learned of Allende's death, and later heard of Neruda's passing. It called to mind, then and now, my recollections, as a young girl, when President Kennedy's assassination was announced. I always thought Neruda died of a broken heart.

This is an exceptionally good memoir, told with great charm, in a series of vignettes. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who has read and enjoyed Pablo Neruda's poetry - to my mind some of the most beautiful in the world. It also gives us a glimpse of the politics of the left from the point of view of a Latin American - not the usual perspective, and well worth while.
JANA