Two years after the Chilean government admitted that Pablo Neruda may have been assassinated by Augusto Pinochet's regime, a probe has uncovered evidence to suggest that the country's Nobel Prize-winning poet did not die of prostate cancer, as his death certificate claims. Was Pablo Neruda assassinated? The evidence is currently inconclusive, but it seems that the official records of his death were not 100 percent accurate, in any case.
Born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalà Reyes Basoalto in 1904, the poet adopted his pseudonym with the self-publication of his first poetry volume, Crepusculario, in 1923. According to the Academy of American Poets, Neruda changed his name "to avoid conflict with his family, who disapproved of his occupation."
During his life, Neruda supported the communist policies of Chilean President Salvador Allende. When a U.S.-backed military coup overthrew Allende and installed Pinochet in his stead, Neruda planned to leave the country for Mexico, where "he had been offered asylum," according to The Guardian. He died 12 days after the coup, on Sep. 23, 1973, the day before he intended to leave the country.
For 40 years, the official story attributed Neruda's death to prostate cancer, but his driver, Manuel Arraya, believes foul play was at hand. Arraya says that Neruda asked him to go to the hospital after claiming that he had been injected in the stomach by Pinochet's secret service. Neruda did indeed have prostate cancer before his death, but it was not advanced enough to kill him, investigators say.
Source: bustle
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