Oh, Malignant

Original Title: Oh, maligna

Oh, maligna follows the trail of the young poet Pablo Neruda in Burma (now Myanmar) where he arrived in 1927 to take up the post of Honorary Consul of Chile. There, he was to meet Josie Bliss—the Malignant, the Furious, as he called her—with whom he embarked on a relationship that was so fiery, so stormy, that he ended up being forced to flee to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The memory of this youthful love, which Neruda captured in one of his most famous poems “El tango del viudo” (The Widower’s Tango), stayed with him until his death. Jorge Edwards, Neruda’s compatriot and friend, offers a masterly re-creation of the story in this work, which is not only his personal tribute to Neruda but, also and especially, one to literature and the words with which it is created.

Praises

«A fragrant story of a poisonous love».
Faro de Vigo

«An extraordinary formal beauty».
ABC, Cultural

«It can be read as a passionate love story or an account of a decisive event in the great Neruda’s personal story».
Diario de Sevilla

Details

Acantilado

November 2019

1 pages

Narrative, Novel