Volodia Teitelboim Author

Volodia Teitelboim (1916-2007) was the son of a Jewish couple from Ukraine and Bessa-rabia. At 16, he joined the Communist Party, and remained a left-wing activist for the rest of his life. In 1935, he co-edited, with Eduardo Anguita the Anthology of New Chilean Poetry, a volume that marked a significant rupture with the past, and managed to give further impetus to the long-running literary feuds between Huidobro, Neruda and Pablo de Rokha. Teitelboim stopped writing poetry, but later wrote fiction as well as several personal memoirs; he is also well known for his biographies of Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, in addition to the volume at hand. In 2002, he was awarded Chile's National Prize for Literature. A lawyer by training, in later life he worked for the government, and served for five years as the head of Chile's Communist Party. He died in 2007, at the age of 91.