Neruda tries in vain to deter Rosa's negative attitude towards 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.

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. Beatriz is curt and distant from Mario, and the young man finds his tongue tied whenever he tries to speak to her. In the village, Mario meets Beatriz González, the daughter of the local barkeep, Rosa. Neruda fuels Mario's interest in poetry by teaching him the value of a metaphor, and the young postman begins practicing this technique. Mario worships Neruda as a hero and buys a volume of his poetry, timidly waiting for the moment to have it autographed.Īfter 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.

Despite the entire village being illiterate, he does have one local to deliver to-the poet, Pablo Neruda, who is living in exile. Mario Jiménez, a timid teenager, rejects the profession of his father, a fisherman, and instead takes a job as the local postman. The story opens in June, 1969 in the little village of Isla Negra, off the coast of Chile.

The postman by david brin