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

Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda ( ; ; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 190423 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old an ...

, from 1966 until he died in 1973. They met in

Santiago, Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

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", 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 by the Chilean public. In his house, there is a portrait of Urrutia painted by

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

, given to her 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 Urrutia as the singer the public knew, and the other depicts the lover Neruda knew. The painting also has a hidden image; the profile view of Neruda's face is 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 military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

, 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.

References

{{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