Pablo Neruda and Juan Marín’s Diplomatic Trip: Some Prose Works on India

Abstract

This paper analyses the representations of Indian culture in Pablo Neruda’s Confieso que he vivido (1974), and Juan Marín’s La India eterna (1956), both based on the Chilean intellectuals’ diplomatic trips to this country; the first one as Chilean consul in Burma (he travelled to India in 1928 and 1950), and the other as a consul in India (from 1949 to 1952). The aim is to study their prose to track the impressions, the imaginary, and the vision of the Oriental world that both writers display in the context of their own Western, particularly Latin-American, idiosyncrasy. Given the theoretical perspectives of Said, Gruzinski, Klengel, Ortiz, Kushigian, Nagy-Zekmi and Pinedo, this article compares the approach of Neuruda and Juan Marín towards the cultural elements of the country, as well as their brands of exploration of the history of India and its religious principles, exoticism, British colonialism, among others. Neruda and Marín tried to demonstrate the high complexity of this culture, as similar or more complex than Western culture.