Perhaps the most lasting memory Neruda took from Burma was of a love affair with Josie Bliss – the name he gave, in his letters and memoirs, to a local woman who for a while worked as his secretary in Rangoon, and who from April or May to November 1928 became, in his words, his “love-smitten terrorist”. To this liaison Feinstein devotes about five pages (63-68).

One consequence of his relationship with Bliss was that Neruda was alienated still further from colonial society. “[W]hen the white colonials learnt of his affair with Josie, they refused him admission to their clubs. He does not appear to have minded this – it was scarcely a sacrifice for him to be forced to avoid the company of people he largely despised for their snobbery, their deliberate act of distancing themselves from the society in which they lived.”

Another was that he became scarred for life. Feinstein provides the context: “This ‘Burmese panther’ became intensely jealous of any other females attempting to grow close to Neruda – and there were many.” Indeed, even though the honorary consul stole away from his lover in secret and sailed far away to Colombo, Ceylon for his next posting, she succeeded in tracking him down in his new home. Convinced to return to Rangoon, Bliss then persuaded her former lover to see her off at the dock.

This is Neruda’s own account of the farewell: [S]eized by a gust of grief and love, she covered my face with kisses and bathed me with her tears. She kissed my arms, my suit, in a kind of ritual, and suddenly slipped down to my shoes, before I could stop her. When she stood up again, the chalk polish of my white shoes was smeared like flour all over her face. I couldn’t ask her to give up her trip, to leave the boat that was taking her away for ever and come with me instead. My better judgment stopped me, but my heart received a scar which is still part of me. That unrestrained grief, those terrible tears running down her chalky face, are still fresh in my memory.”