It tells the story of Mario Jiménez, a fictional postman who befriends the real-life poet, politician and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda, and is set in the years around the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.

The novel is based on the motion picture Burning Patience [es], of the same author, released in 1983,[1] and it was turned into another movie in 1995 as Il Postino, directed by Michael Radford.

Mario Jiménez, a timid teenager, rejects the profession of his father, a fisherman, and instead takes a job as the local postman.

After some time, Mario garners enough courage to strike up a conversation with Neruda, who is waiting for word about his candidacy for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and despite an awkward beginning, the two become good friends.

Neruda fuels Mario's interest in poetry by teaching him the value of a metaphor, and the young postman begins practising this technique.

It is announced that Neruda has won the Nobel Prize and Mario celebrates with the rest of the village by throwing a party at Rosa's restaurant.

As Mario gets into the car, he overhears on the radio that several subversive magazines have been taken over by coup forces, including La Quinta Rueda.