Carreño was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1913.In 1925, he began his studies in the Academia San Alejandro de Cuba.In Spain, he studied graphic arts, and in France he had lessons with the Domincan painter Jaime Colson.In 1939 he met Pablo Neruda, who invited him to visit Chile.Carreño founded, together with other artists and architects, the Art School of the Universidad Católica de Chile, and in 1969 he was appointed its Subdirector. That same year he became a Chilean citizen.In 1946, he teaches in The New School for Social Research in the United States, and in the School of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba.Carreño will maintain his solid friendship with Pablo Neruda until the death of the latter in 1973.In 1982, he received the National Award for Art for his work in the Plastic Arts.Carreño died in Santiago in 1999.

Aguirre was born in Santiago in 1920. She lived part of her childhood in Argentina, where her father, Socrates Aguirre, was the Chilean General Consul at the time when Neruda began his career at the Chilean Consulate.After her marriage with Rodolfo Araos, Margarita Aguirre settled once more in Argentina and later returned to Chile.Her published works include Cuadernos de una muchacha muda (Santiago, 1951); and El Huésped (Buenos Aires, 1958), an Emecé Novel Award and Honor Label of the Argentinian Society of Publishers.Aguirre was Pablo Neruda's secretary. Her great closeness with the poet turned her into one of his first biographers. In 1954, she published Genio y figura de Pablo Neruda, also published under the title Pablo Neruda, las vidas del poeta. Margarita Aguirre died in December of 2003.

Levine was born in Chile in 1923. He studied Business. In the 1930s, he helped create the project that gave origin to the Corporación de Fomento Fabril (Corfo) and the Compañía de Aceros del Pacífico (Cap). He also participated in the founding of the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), and the Banco del Estado de Chile. He actively participated in the initiation of the Research Department of Chile's Treasury Department and in the creation of the Universidad de Chile's Institute of Economics.He was the first President of the Interamerican Foundation for the Arts, an iniative he himself promoted with the idea that the assistance that the Alliance for Progress gave to Latin American countries could also go to the region's cultural development. Levine's solid friendship with Pablo Neruda and Matilde Urrutia led to his active participation in the creation and formation of The Pablo Neruda Foundation. He was a member of the Board of Directors until the year 2000, when he retired for health reasons.In 1992, he received the Ministry of Education's Order Gabriela Mistral as an award for his contribution to the development of arts and culture.

Coloane was born in Quemchi, Chiloé, in 1910. Son of a captain of coasting trade ships and a peasant woman, he received basic schooling, and he continued his studies in Ancud and Punta Arenas but did not finish his secondary education. His mother died when he was seventeen years old and he had to suspend his studies in order to make a living. Once he finished his military service, at the age of eighteen, he worked as a shepherd and foreman in the sheep ranches of the eastern coast of Tierra del Fuego. Some time later, he participated in oil prospecting in the province of Magallanes.Coloane was a clerk for the Chilean Navy for four years, and in 1933, he traveled in the sailing ship Baquedano. Later, while living in Santiago, he worked as a journalist.In 1945, three of his works were published: Los conquistadores de la Antártida (an adolescent novel), Golfo de Penas (a collection of short stories), and La Tierra del Fuego se apaga (a play in three acts). La Tierra del Fuego se apaga had its premiere in Santiago, in 1956, and was later filmed in Argentina.In 1964, Coloane received the National Literary Award. He died in Santiago in August of 2002.

Loyola was born in Chile in 1932. He studied to become a Spanish teacher at the Universidad de Chile's Teaching Institute. Until 1973, he was a teacher of Spanish American Literature at the Universidad de Chile. Forced to abandon his country, in 1977 he became a professor at the University of Sassari, Italy. He was a personal friend of Pablo Neruda and has become one of the most important world specialists on the poet's life and work. He has published numerous books, articles, critical editions and anthologies of Pablo Neruda, among them: Los Modos de Autorreferencia en la Obra de Pablo Neruda and Ser y morir en Pablo Neruda. Likewise, he was in charge of the detailed and documented edition of the Obras Completas de Pablo Neruda, in five volumes, published by Círculo de Lectores -Galaxia Gutemberg. He is also preparing a large volume synthesizing thirty years of research, entitled Pablo Neruda. La biografía literaria.

Francisco Velasco, a medical doctor, was Director of the Salvador hospital in Vaparaíso, and an Art teacher at the Universidad de Chile de Valparaíso. Marie Martner de Velasco is a muralist and stained-glass artist, and a former Art teacher at the Universidad de Chile's School of Architecture in Valparaíso.They both met Neruda in 1952, during a demonstration artists and intellectuals offered to the poet after his return from exile. In 1959, they bought, together with Neruda, a property that would later become "La Sebastiana" in the Bellavista hill of Valparaíso, and so became Neruda's neighbors. Doctor Francisco Velasco is the author of Neruda a través de sus metáforas, Neruda, el gran amigo, and Los rostros de Neruda, published in 1984, 1986 and 1988, respectively. Presently, he is preparing two books about Neruda: Ideario de Neruda and Neruda es y no es. His literary activity also drove him to relate his experience as a political prisoner onboard of the warship Lebu, in Retenido en Lebu. Marie Martner created the stone murals that dress Neruda's houses: Los peces del frío in "La Chascona," Mural azul that decorates the chimney in Isla Negra, and Maremoto in the living room of "La Sebastiana". In this last house there is also a wonderful map of the Antartic and Patagonia based on an original document Neruda lent Martner.