Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was born and died in Chile, but as a member of the diplomatic corps and later as a sort of roving cultural ambassador, he lived in and visited many parts of the world. His first book of poetry was published before he was twenty, and Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, published the following year, made him famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Besides the Canto and the Elemental Odes series, the major works of his vast poetic production include Residence on Earth and Estravagario. Jack Schmitt is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at California State University, Long Beach, and translator of Raul Zurita's Anteparadise (California, 1986). Reviewing Zurita's Anteparadise, critic W. S. Merwin called Schmitt a sensitive, precise, dedicated translator (Los Angeles Times Book Review).Roberto González Echevarría is Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literatures at Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative, among many other works.Margaret Sayers Peden is Professor Emerita of Spanish at the University of Missouri, Columbia. The author of Emilio Carballidoand editor of The Latin American Short Story, A Critical History, she has translated more than twenty works of fiction, drama, and poetry.