Ardiente paciencia
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| Author | Antonio Skármeta |
|---|---|
| Original title | Ardiente Paciencia |
| Translator | Katherine Silver (English) |
| Country | Chile |
| Language | Spanish |
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Publication date
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1985 |
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Published in English
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1987 |
| Pages | 118 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 32131425 |
| 863 20 | |
| LC Class | PQ8098.29.K3 A7313 1993 |
Ardiente Paciencia, or El Cartero De Neruda, is a 1985 novel by Antonio Skármeta. The novel was published in the English market under the title The Postman. It tells the story of Mario Jiménez, a fictional postman in revolution-era Chile, who befriends the real-life poet Pablo Neruda.
The novel is based on the motion picture of the same author released in 1983, and it was turned into another movie in 1995 as Il Postino, directed by Michael Radford. It was also turned in an opera, Il Postino, by Daniel Catán, with Plácido Domingo portraying Pablo Neruda (premiered at the Los Angeles Opera, 2010).
The story opens in June, 1969 in the little village of Isla Negra, on the coast of Chile.
Mario Jiménez, a timid teenager, rejects the profession of his father, a fisherman, and instead takes a job as the local postman. Despite the entire village being illiterate, he does have one local to deliver to—the poet, Pablo Neruda, who is living in exile. Mario worships Neruda as a hero and buys a volume of his poetry, timidly waiting for the moment to have it autographed.
After some time, Mario garners enough courage to strike up a conversation with Neruda, who is waiting for word about his candidacy for the Nobel Prize for literature, and despite an awkward beginning, the two become good friends. Neruda fuels Mario's interest in poetry by teaching him the value of a metaphor, and the young postman begins practicing this technique.
In the village, Mario meets Beatriz González, the daughter of the local barkeep, Rosa. Beatriz is curt and distant from Mario, and the young man finds his tongue tied whenever he tries to speak to her. With Neruda's help as a poet and an influential countryman, Mario overcomes his shy nature and he and Beatriz fall in love, much to the dismay of Rosa, who banishes Beatriz from seeing Mario.
Neruda's matters are complicated when he is nominated for candidacy as the president of the Chilean Communist Party, but returns to the island when the nomination turns to Salvador Allende. Neruda tries in vain to deter Rosa's negative attitude towards Mario.
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