I accept this Award with great humility, conscious of the tremendous honour that has been bestowed on me,
particularly when I consider the many English-speaking Caribbean men and women of letters and other creative
artists that would have been even more deserving of this recognition. So I wish to include this group in my reply to
the Chilean Ambassador today.

I am especially moved if only because Pablo Neruda has always ranked very high on my list of the world’s outstanding poets.
His work, which I regret to have to confess, I have read only in the English translations, must surely be among the most
lyrical in any language, with an understanding of deep emotion, and the ability to convey the deepest feelings in phrases
that move the reader, engaging all the senses – sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing – with words that somehow manage to
bring all five senses off the page and into one’s very heart. Indeed I used to like to say to one or two acquaintances of too
solemn a Bolshevik persuasion that they should read Neruda whose love poems demonstrated beyond doubt that Communists, contrary to the view among many, can also be loving, compassionate, caring souls.

His mastery of alliteration and his incredible use of sounds are unfailing in sending the messages that he wishes to convey,
and we are always swept up in the moment, and left overwhelmed and often breathless at the power that comes from the
brilliance with which he couches his thoughts, using words which embrace the reader.