Pablo Neruda

PABLO NERUDA (Chile, 1904 - 1973).
"New love song to Stalingrad", 1st Edition.
Print run of five thousand copies on Chemalín paper.
Publisher: Committee for Aid to Russia at War, Mexico.
16 unnumbered pages. Paperback binding with cover vignette and typographical direction by Miguel Prieto (1907-1956).
In cardboard slipcase with gilt lettering on the spine.
Measurements: 22,5 x 17 cm.
Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado is one of the most representative compositions of Pablo Neruda's committed poetry during World War II. Read by the author himself in 1943 at the banquet organized in Mexico in honor of the Soviet Union by Mexican intellectuals and foreign residents, the poem became a symbol of international solidarity in the face of the war.
The edition described here was published in Mexico by the Committee for Aid to Russia at War, with a print run of 5,000 copies printed on Chemalin paper. Neruda expressly ceded his copyright with the aim of allocating the profits to the relief of the combatants and civilian populations of the Soviet Union, which underlines the strong ethical and political commitment of the work in its historical context.
The poem, short in length (16 unnumbered pages), is presented in paperback binding with a vignette on the cover and typographical direction by Miguel Prieto, a key figure in the editorial design of the Spanish Republican exile in America. The edition was also carefully presented, including a cardboard slipcase with gilt lettering on the spine, which contrasts with its purpose of solidarity and wide dissemination.
Beyond its material value, Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado stands out for its lyrical intensity and its epic-political character, in which Neruda exalts the resistance of the Soviet city as a symbol of struggle against fascism. The work clearly reflects the historical moment of the 1940s, when the author's poetry is oriented towards an openly militant expression, without losing its imaginative force or its capacity to move.
This Mexican edition, both for its publication context and for its solidarity purpose and its direct relation to a historical event, constitutes a fundamental testimony of Neruda's committed poetry and of the international circulation of his work in times of war.