Who are the best known Chileans?
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda, whose real name is Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes-Basoalto, is without a doubt the best known Chilean outside the Chilean borders.
A man of literature, he was a poet, writer, diplomat and politician. Born on July 12, 1904 in Parral (Linares province, Chile), he died on September 23, 1973 in Santiago de Chile.
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, he is considered one of the four greats of Chilean poetry, along with Gabriela Mistral, Pablo de Rokha and Vicente Huidobro.
His political commitment in the face of Pinochet's dictatorship also earned him the sympathy of many Chileans.
Michelle Bachelet
Born on September 29, 1951 in Santiago, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is the first woman president of Chile.
Daughter of a general opposed to Augusto Pinochet's regime, she was arrested, detained and tortured with her mother by the political police in January 1975 when she was a student. She lived in Australia and Germany before returning to Chile, where she obtained a surgical degree in 1982.
A member of the Socialist Party of Chile, she served as Minister of Health from 2000 to 2002 and then Minister of Defense from 2002 to 2004 in the governments of Ricardo Lagos. She was elected President of the Republic of Chile for the first time from 2006 to 2009 and is head of UN Women from 2010 to 2013. This mother of French origin is again President of the Republic from 2014 to 2018.
In 2018 her appointment as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is unanimously approved. She is considered today as one of the most influential women politicians in the world.
Don Francisco
Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld popularly known as Don Francisco is a Chilean television host, born in Talca on December 28, 1940. He is one of the most popular television characters in the Spanish language media, known thanks to his television program "Sabado Gigante", broadcast in 44 countries around the world and later on "Quien quiere ser milionario? ». His greatest achievement was to be the creator and host of the Teletón, a fundraising campaign for disabled children, which has been imitated in other Latin American countries as well as in France with the famous Telethon.
Sebastian Piñera
Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique, born December 1, 1949 in Santiago is a Chilean businessman and statesman, president of the republic from 2010 to 2014 and currently since 2018. After a career as an economist working for several institutions, including the World Bank, he built his success as a businessman in the 1980s. He is one of the richest people in the country, with a fortune estimated in 2017 at 2.7 billion dollars, which earned him a rather controversial image. He is nicknamed the Chilean Berlusconi... He then presides over the right-wing National Renovation Party, for which he was the candidate in the 2005-2006 presidential election won by Michelle Bachelet. Candidate of a right-wing coalition in the 2009-2010 presidential election, he was elected President of the Republic over former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, thus putting an end to twenty years of center-left power. During his term of office, he dedicated himself to the reconstruction of the south-central part of the country after the earthquake of February 2010, as well as to the news of the 33 Chilean miners trapped in the San José mine from August to October 2010, in which he was personally involved.
Yván Zamorano and Marcelo Salas
Yván Luis Zamorano Zamora is an ex-Hispanic-Chilean soccer player considered by the press as the most outstanding in the 90s. He was captain of the Chilean national team, with whom he scored 40 goals. Known for his scoring ability and his superb aerial play (he was nicknamed the helicopter), he is considered one of the best Chilean players in history along with Marcelo Salas. Together they form the best pair of strikers of the La Roja national team. Marcelo, Yván's spiritual son, was the author of the most beautiful goal ever scored at Wembley during the match between England and Chile in 1998.
