Then Come Back

Book excerpt: This stunning collection gathers never-before-seen poems, found by archivists in boxes kept at the Pablo Neruda Foundation in Chile in 2014. Neruda is renowned for poetry that casts away despair and celebrates living, fired by his belief that there is no unsurmountable solitude. Then Come Back presents Neruda's mature imagination and writing: signature love poems, odes, anecdotes, and poems of the political imagination. Translator Forrest Gander beautifully renders the eros and heartache, deep wonder and complex wordplay of the original Spanish, which is presented here alongside full-colour reproductions of the poems in their original composition on napkins, playbills, receipts, and in notebooks. Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda simultaneously completes and advances the oeuvre of the Nobel Laureate. Discovered during the cataloguing of Neruda's papers, there are 21 poems in all, together with detailed notes about how they relate to his published work.