Gynecologist-obstetrician. Partner of the Chilean Bibliophile Society.

Edgardo Corral was born in 1954 in Rancagua, 10 kilometres south of Santiago. He is a gynaecological obstetrician, a specialist in foetal medicine. Currently, he is the Head of the GO Service and has been directing an intrauterine surgery program since 2012 at the Rancagua Hospital. He has published several articles in different international magazines, and he is the author of a couple of chapters in books on the area. He is also an academic at the Diego Portales University School of Medicine.

Edgardo grew up in the province and when he was a teenage student, he had the privilege of meeting Neruda personally, when Neruda visited his Lyceum around 1970. On that memorable day, his interest in Neruda’s universe was born, which he approached through an avid reading of his best known poetry. Later, he studied both the biography and the complete work of the poet, becoming a true cultist of Neruda.

Later, with time and travel, he realized that Neruda is the most universal character that Chile has. This was another motivation to passionately search for any document or memory that is related to his life and work. This is how, to this day, he is a recognized collector of first editions, letters, and some handwritten pieces by Neruda. In addition, he has dedicated himself to research and writing articles on unknown, but important, topics that belong to Neruda’s life. Among others, he published in the magazine of the Neruda Foundation a scientific analysis on the birth in Madrid of Neruda’s only daughter, Malva Marina. He also participated together with the Mayor, in the inauguration of Pablo Neruda Street in Saint-Avertin near Paris and he is working on a draft describing the friendly relationship between Neruda and Baltazar Castro, a politician and writer from Rancagua, his hometown.