News at Eleven: I am convinced that the women in Neruda's life

are the ones who hold his secret. The ultimate keys to his personality and to his work cannot be found in the academic treatises on him, but in the voices of the women who mattered in his personal life--what they said, and what they kept silent. I believe that only these relationships convey the flesh-and-blood poet, that profoundly contradictory being, so full of light and shadow, that I sought and found in order to write my novel that blends fiction with actual history. The rest is a matter of interpreting the words--both poetic and everyday--that Neruda used throughout his life to protect himself, to hide, and to project the image of himself that has become so legendary.

from The Daily Beast: Pablo Neruda, My Neighbor: Roberto Ampuero Recalls His Childhood

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