Matilde Urrutia (1912–1985)

Matilde Urrutia Cerda was born in Linares Province, Chile. She left home for Santiago with ambitions to become a singer and actress. In 1946, while she was working as a physical therapist, she met poet Pablo Neruda. She became Neruda's lover, muse, and eventually in 1966, his third wife. Matilde served as the inspiration for many of Neruda's beautiful love poems during their relationship, which remained hidden for more than 10 years. The Nobel Prize winner wrote The Captain's Verses and One Hundred Love Sonnets — two of the most celebrated volumes of modern Spanish literature — for her. After Neruda's death in 1973, she 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, which tried to suppress the memory of Neruda, an outspoken Communist.

Her own memoir, My Life with Pablo Neruda, was published posthumously in 1986. The book documented her life as the persecuted widow of a national hero.