CASA MUSEO ISLA NEGRA

"This house is my boat anchored to the ground. It was Neruda's favorite house. He named it ("the black island") because of the black color of the rocks and because he lived there almost as a hermit. Purchased in 1938, it was then a ruin accessible only by horse-drawn cart. It was enlarged again in 1965. Made entirely of granite and wood, the house faces the Pacific Ocean, which was a great source of inspiration for Pablo Neruda, notably in the writing of his masterpiece, Canto General, a hymn to Latin America in over 15,000 verses, and many other of his works. Compared to his other homes, this is a bright house, with an impressive collection of heterogeneous and incongruous objects: postcards, crockery, model ships, shells, sculptures... In the courtyard, you'll notice a fishing boat and a steam locomotive! The poet spent his last Fiestas Patrias here on September 18, 1973 with friends, a few days after Pinochet's coup d'état, before being taken ill the next day to Santiago, where he died. He returned here in his coffin in December 1992, to be laid to rest beside his wife Matilde Urrutia. The mystery surrounding his death still reigns, and in 2017, a group of experts commissioned by the Chilean justice system revealed that the poet's death was not due to cancer. In early 2023, a toxin was found in the poet's bones, prompting his family to suspect poisoning. Investigations are still underway.