Matilde Urrutia

Matilde Urrutia Cerda (30 April 1912 – 5 January 1985) was the third wife of Chilean poet

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

, from 1966 until his death in 1973. They met in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

in 1946, when she was working as a physical therapist in Chile. She was the first woman in Latin America to work as a pediatric therapist. Urrutia was the inspiration behind Neruda's later love poems beginning with ''Los Versos del Capitan'' in 1951, which the poet withheld publication until 1961 to spare the feelings of his previous wife; as well as ''100 Love Sonnets'' which includes a beautiful dedication to her. Neruda built a house in Santiago called "

La Chascona La Chascona is a house in the Barrio Bellavista of Santiago, Chile, which was owned by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. La Chascona reflects Neruda's quirky style, in particular his love of the sea, and is now a popular destination for tourists. Nerud ...

", for Urrutia, which served as a secret love den for the two, as news that Neruda was having an affair would not have been received well with the Chilean public. In his house there is a painting given to Urrutia by Neruda depicting a two faced Urrutia with her famously long bright red hair. What is remarkable about this painting is that one face depicts the Urrutia as the singer the public knew, and the other depicting the lover Neruda knew. The painting also has a hidden image; the profile view of Neruda's face hidden in her hair, showing their continuous secret relationship. After Neruda's death, Urrutia edited for publication his memoir, ''Confieso que he vivido'' ("I confess that I have lived"). This and other activities brought her into conflict with the government of

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

which tried to suppress the memory of Neruda, an outspoken communist, from the collective consciousness. Her own memoir, ''My Life with Pablo Neruda'', , was published posthumously in 1986. {{DEFAULTSORT:Urrutia, Matilde 1912 births 1985 deaths Chilean people of Basque descent Chilean memoirists People from Chillán Women memoirists 20th-century Chilean women writers 20th-century Chilean non-fiction writers Pablo Neruda 20th-century memoirists