From Neftalí to Pablo Neruda. Memory in Images

Today, thanks to the efforts of Bernardo Reyes, great-nephew of the poet, meticulous researcher and tenacious chronicler of his stage in Temuco, this album is published, made up of photographs and documentation from that epoch.

This is perhaps the occasion to say something about the significance of the albums. Perhaps at those times there was more custom than now to conserve and group photos. The Girl from Temuco did it, who inspired her admirer with discoveries and enchantments. Regretted later that this series of passionate and beautiful letters sent by the enamored young man got lost in strange hands, with destinations unknown until today.

The epoch in Temuco and a later one are distinguished in this album. It provides iconography and documents that expand the stage, covering then the country, an enigmatic Far East, largely impenetrable; an endearing, supportive, bloodied Spain; an America that he wants to recover in its depths and a world that he discovers and discovered him.

Of course, friends of the copious bohemia of the 20s appear through these photos. They show that the sharp face of the adolescent is giving way to the face of the epicurean. He loved life with all its seductions, without failing to fulfill his responsibilities before a humanity that he always wanted more fortunate and just, inviting Juan Pies Descalzos, Juan Cortapiedras, to a: “come up to be born with me brother; Speak through my words and my blood”.

Was a great dream of the man, “common in face, kind of women”, that at different moments of his existence walks through this Album of Temuco, with the slow step of a faraway time.

Volodia Teitelboim