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50 free Pablo Neruda trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Pablo Neruda was a pen name, a senator, a consul in Rangoon and Madrid, a fugitive on horseback over the Andes, an ambassador in Paris and the 1971 Nobel laureate, and he was all of those things while writing the best-selling poetry book in the Spanish language. Gabriel García Márquez called him the greatest poet of the twentieth century in any language; Jorge Luis Borges called him a very fine poet and a very mean man. These 50 questions follow the whole arc: the railway worker's son from Parral who published at 13, the Czech poet he probably borrowed his name from, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair at 19, the lonely consular years that produced Residence on Earth, the Spanish Civil War, the Winnipeg and its 2,200 refugees, the 'Yo acuso' speech, thirteen months in hiding, Canto General, Matilde Urrutia and La Chascona, Il Postino, the Nobel and the exhumations that followed his death twelve days after the Pinochet coup. The hard tier asks which passport got him to Europe and what grew in one of his molars. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01Pablo Neruda was a poet and diplomat from which country?
Chile
He is often called Chile's national poet, and three of his houses there are now museums.
Q 02In which year did Neruda win the Nobel Prize in Literature?
1971
Gabriela Mistral, who had encouraged him as a schoolboy, had won Chile's first in 1945.
Q 03Neruda's 1924 collection of love poems is titled Twenty Love Poems and a Song of what?
Despair
It launched him at 19 and remains the best-selling poetry book in the Spanish language.
Q 04Neruda's surname at birth was what?
Reyes
He was born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto and adopted the pen name around 1920.
Q 05Neruda is thought to have taken his pen name from a poet of which nationality?
Czech
Jan Neruda is the usual candidate, though the violinist Wilma Neruda, mentioned in A Study in Scarlet, is another theory.
Q 06In which Chilean town was Neruda born in 1904?
Parral
His mother, a schoolteacher, died two months after his birth and the family moved south to Temuco.
Q 07What was the occupation of Neruda's father?
Railway employee
He opposed his son's writing; the local school head Gabriela Mistral encouraged it instead.
Q 08Which future Nobel laureate headed the local school and encouraged the young Neruda?
Gabriela Mistral
Mistral had read his work since he was a teenager and later preceded him as consul in Madrid.
Q 09How old was Neruda when he published his first work, an essay, in 1917?
13
'Entusiasmo y perseverancia' ran in the Temuco daily La Mañana under his real name, Neftalí Reyes.
Q 10What was the title of Neruda's first volume of verse, published in 1923?
Crepusculario
The title translates as Book of Twilights; Twenty Love Poems followed from the same publisher a year later.
Q 11Neruda moved to the capital in 1921 intending to become a teacher of which language?
French
He soon abandoned the course for poetry and, through Eduardo Barrios, met the publisher Carlos Nascimento.
Q 12Neruda's first diplomatic post in 1927 was an honorary consulship in which city?
Rangoon
He took the Burma posting out of financial desperation and later served in Colombo, Batavia and Singapore.
Q 13Neruda's first wife, known as Maruca, was a bank employee of which nationality?
Dutch
He met María Antonia Hagenaar Vogelzang in Batavia; their only child, Malva Marina, died aged eight in the occupied Netherlands.
Q 21Which Chilean president, whose campaign Neruda managed, later outlawed the Communist Party?
Gabriel González Videla
Neruda's January 1948 Senate speech 'Yo acuso' read out the names of imprisoned miners.
Q 22What title did Neruda's dramatic 6 January 1948 Senate speech become known by?
Yo acuso
The name echoes Zola's 'J'accuse'; weeks later a warrant was out and Neruda went into hiding.
Q 23For roughly how many months was Neruda hidden by supporters before fleeing Chile?
Thirteen
He was moved from house to house, then to Valdivia and a forestry estate near Huishue Lake.
Q 14Which Spanish poet's execution was the main catalyst for Neruda's turn to communism?
Federico García Lorca
Neruda had befriended him in Madrid alongside Alberti and the Peruvian César Vallejo.
Q 15Neruda's 1938 collection supporting the Spanish Republic was titled what in English?
Spain in Our Hearts
España en el corazón cost him his consular post because of its political militancy.
Q 16What was the name of the ship Neruda used to carry Spanish refugees to Chile in 1939?
Winnipeg
He called the mission the noblest he ever undertook; the old cargo ship was adapted to carry 2,200 people.
Q 17Which Chilean port did Neruda's refugee ship reach on 3 September 1939?
Valparaíso
The refugees hung a canvas of President Aguirre Cerda's face from the mast in thanks.
Q 18Where did Neruda serve as Consul General from 1940 to 1943?
Mexico City
There he arranged a visa for the muralist Siqueiros, accused of plotting against Trotsky.
Q 19A 1943 visit to which ancient site inspired a twelve-part Neruda poem, later Canto II?
Machu Picchu
The poem later became Canto II of Canto General and condemned the slavery behind the stonework.
Q 20In 1945 Neruda was elected senator for Antofagasta and Tarapacá, provinces in which desert?
Atacama
He represented the Communist Party and formally joined it four months after the election.
Q 24In March 1949 Neruda escaped over the Andes into Argentina by what means?
On horseback
He crossed the Lilpela Pass and later recounted the escape in his Nobel lecture.
Q 25Whose passport did Neruda use to travel from Buenos Aires to Europe after his escape?
Miguel Ángel Asturias
The Guatemalan novelist, a future Nobel winner, bore a slight resemblance to him.
Q 26Which artist arranged Neruda's entrance into Paris in 1949?
Pablo Picasso
He surprised the World Congress of Peace Forces while Chile's government was denying he had escaped.
Q 27Canto General was first published in 1950 in which country?
Mexico
A month later the outlawed Chilean Communist Party boldly printed 5,000 copies from a manuscript he had left behind.
Q 28How many sections, or cantos, make up Canto General?
15
The epic runs to 231 poems and over 15,000 lines, a history of the whole Western Hemisphere.
Q 29Which Greek composer turned Canto General into an oratorio in 1975?
Mikis Theodorakis
Chilean composer Sergio Ortega had earlier worked with Neruda on the musical play about Joaquín Murieta.
Q 30Matilde Urrutia, Neruda's third wife, was hired in 1949 to nurse him through which illness?
Phlebitis
The affair began in Mexico; she became the muse of Los versos del capitán, published anonymously in 1952.