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The Ant

Delia del Carril, the Avant-Garde Artist Who Married Pablo Neruda

By Fernando Sáez (trans. Jessica Sequeira)

The first biography of Pablo Neruda’s great love, a woman who defied conventions and defined a Latin American century

Delia del Carril (1884 - 1989) grew up in the aristocratic world of the Buenos Aires élite, but she rebelled by becoming an artist, a communist and a cultural force in Latin America and Europe. Known as “the Ant” for her tireless work ethic, beloved for her wit and admired for her gigantic engravings, Delia’s passion for life was unmatched, except perhaps by her husband of over twenty years, Pablo Neruda.

In The Ant, Fernando Sáez explores the life and achievements of this remarkable woman, as well as her profound influence on Neruda’s writing. Written with deep empathy and peerless research, The Ant is both the unforgettable story of a woman’s lifelong quest for artistic and political freedom, and a revealing look at how 20^th-century Latin American society changed throughout Delia’s long life.

Fernando Sáez is a biographer and novelist, as well as Director of the Pablo Neruda Foundation in Santiago, Chile.

Jessica Sequeira has translated more than twenty books of poetry and prose by Latin American authors, and in 2019 was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclán for her translation of Sara Gallardo’s Land of Smoke. She is based at the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge.