Horacio Quiroga

Uraguyan short story writer 1878-1937. Quiroga wrote stories which in their use of the supernatural and the bizarre look backwards to Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, but also look forward to the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He had a famously miserable and unhappy life. His father, who was an Argentinian consular official, was killed accidentally in a shooting incident when Horacio was an infant. The family moved to Córdoba and returned to Salto in 1883. After his stepfather's death - he shot himself - Quiroga visited Paris, but soon realized that the 'bohemian' life was not for him. He returned to South American, but accidentally shot and killed his friend in 1902 while they were inspecting a gun. In 1904 he settled in Chano province. He planted cotton but the venture failed and he abandoned the project. He then taught for a while, and married one of his pupils. They had one daughter, named Egle, and one son. Both these children later killed themselves. With his family Quiroga moved to San Ignacio, Misiones, on the river Paraná, where he assumed a post of registrat. Unable to tolerate the harsh conditions, Quiroga's wife committed suicide by poisoning herself - she suffered a full week before she died. His most famous collections are 'Cuentos de amor, de locura, y de muerte' (1917) and 'Los desterrados' (1926). These deal with anthropomorphic, intelligent animals, fate, a jungle that seems to be alive and bizarre coincidences: all against a backdrop of total despair. Quiroga is one now seen as one of the greatest of Uraguyan writers.

Selected Works Translated into English

Horacio Quiroga 'The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories' (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). (ISBN: 0299198340)