HAT MONTHLY MEETING
SAT JUNE 15, 2013, 1:30-3p,
OISE, 252 Bloor Street West
TOPIC: “The Mysterious Death of Poet Pablo Neruda:
Politics and Culture in Chile.”
SPEAKER: Dr. Luis Fornazzari
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1971, has been called “the greatest poet of the
20th century in any language.” When communism was outlawed in Chile
in 1948, an arrest warrant was issued for Neruda, a communist, sending him into
hiding and eventually into exile. He returned many years later and became a
close advisor to socialist President Salvador Allende. At the time of the coup
against Allende led by General Augusto Pinochet, Neruda was hospitalized with
cancer and died three days later. There are suspicions that the junta had a hand
in his death.
In June 2011 a Chilean judge ordered that an
investigation be launched following suggestions that Neruda had been murdered by
the Pinochet regime for his pro-Allende stance and political views. Enough
evidence was uncovered to order an exhumation of Neruda’s body in April 2013 to
determine if he had been poisoned.
Enter Dr. Luis Fornazzari, a behavioural
neurologist and assistant professor in medicine at the University of Toronto. He
is a Chilean-Canadian medical authority who has followed the case closely. Dr.
Fornazzari was born and raised in Chile and has lived in Canada since 1974,
after fleeing his native country following the coup that brought Pinochet to
power. Dr. Fornazzari will discuss his role in this attempt to solve the
mysterious death of Pablo Neruda and his personal experience of the political
turmoil that brought him to Canada in 1974. This will be a fascinating
afternoon, mixing forensics, intrigue and poetry. We may even read a few poems!
