Luis Schmidt (right), Chilean ambassador to China, presents an honor to Peking University professor Zhao Zhenjiang, translator of Gabriela Mistral’s anthology, at a book donation ceremony held at the Chilean embassy in Beijing on Nov 27, 2020. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]

"Love – erotic love, maternal love and brotherly love, runs through Mistral's poetry," said Peking University professor Zhao Zhenjiang, who translated the anthology. "I admire and translate Mistral not only for her poetry, but also for her virtues and charisma," added Zhao, the first Chinese translator of Mistral's poems back in the 1980s.

Zhao, an eminent figure in translating and researching Latin American literature, said compared with Pablo Neruda, another Chilean Nobel laureate, Mistral's poetry is more focused on human nature than on politics.

"Her verses, especially those on fraternity, responded to people's needs at the time when World War II had just ended," Zhao said, adding "fraternity is also what we need now as the world is being fractured by the COVID-19 pandemic".

The event is part of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Chile.

"The two countries formed diplomatic relations in 1970, but our friendship dates way before that; poetry, an invisible yet powerful force, played a key role in forming it," Chilean foreign minister Andres Allamand wrote in the book's foreword.

In 1952, Neruda and painter José Venturelli established the Chile-China Cultural Association, the first non-governmental organization in Latin America committed to growing friendly ties with China, Allamand revealed in the foreword.