Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda

Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.

A literary event of universal importance.–The Guardian

The earliest poem in the collection dates to 1956, and several are love poems, a form Neruda was famous for.–The New York Times

This new volume will be a labor of love for the publisher and a joy for readers everywhere.–Library Journal

This brief visit with Neruda ends all too soon, yet reminds one why his work still matters.–The Washington Post

Pablo Neruda’s lost poems–recently discovered in his archive to the delight of readers and scholars–comprise this remarkable and essential volume.

Originally composed on napkins, playbills, receipts, and notebooks, Neruda’s lost poems are full of eros and heartache, complex wordplay and deep wonder. Presented with the Spanish text, full-color reproductions of handwritten poems, and dynamic English translations, Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda simultaneously completes and advances the oeuvre of the world’s most beloved poet.

Crossing the sky I near the red ray of your hair. Of earth and wheat I am and as I close-in your fire kindles itself inside me and the rocks and flour ignite. That’s why my heart expands and rises into bread for your mouth to devour,
and my blood is wine poured for you. You and I are the land with its fruit. Bread, fire, blood and wine make up the earthly love that sears us.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) is one of the world’s most beloved and best-selling poets. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Translator Forrest Gander teaches at Brown University and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.