Horacio Quiroga Biography and List of Works

Uruguayan short story writer who has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe. Quiroga wrote over 200 short stories. Among his famous tales is the haunting 'The Feather Pillow,' in which a young bride, Alicia, withers in a large silent house. Jordan, her husband, watches helplessly as her life fades away. After Alicia's death a servant finds in her pillow a grotesque animal with hairy legs, a parasitic creature, swollen from the blood it has sucked from Alicia.

"These parasites of feathered creatures, diminutive in their habitual environment, reach enormous proportions under certain conditions. Human blood seems particularly favourable to them, and it is not rare to encounter them in feather pillows."

Horacio Quiroga was born at Salto on the River Uruguay. His father, who was an Argentinean consular official, died in a shooting incident when Horacio was an infant. The family moved to Córdoba and returned to Salto in 1883. In 1891 the family moved to the capital, Montevideo where Quiroga studied at the university for a short time. From 1897 he started to publish in local magazines and was the founding editor of Revista de Salto (1899-90). After his stepfather's death - he shot himself - Quiroga visited Paris, where he fell under the influence of the French symbolist movement and the works of Poe. His diary from this period was published in 1950.After returning to Uruguay, Quiroga became the centre of a group of young writers.

Quiroga accidentally shot and killed his friend in 1902 while they were inspecting a gun. He left for Buenos Aires where he taught Spanish at the British School. He was the official photographer on an expedition, led by the poet Leopoldo Lugones, to Misiones in northeast Argentina. The target was the Jesuit ruins - the Jesuits had been expelled in 1767. The wild region enchanted Quiroga and he spent the larger part of his life in remote jungle regions. In 1904 he settled in Chano province. He planted cotton but the venture failed and he abandoned the project. From 1906 to 1911 he taught at the Escuela Normal, Buenos Aires.

In 1909 Quiroga married his pupil Ana María Cires, they had one daughter, named Egle, and one son, named after the pseudonymous surname of Félix Sarmiento, Darío. Both these children later killed themselves. The family moved to San Ignacio, Misiones, on the river Paraná, where he assumed the post of registrat. Unable to tolerate the harsh conditions Quiroga's wife poisoned herself six years later - she suffered for a full week before she died. Alone with two children, Quiroga wrote a tender collection of children's stories. In 1916 he returned to Buenos Aires with his children. He worked at the Uruguyan consulate and in 1925 returned to Misiones. Two years later he married María Elena Bravo, a friend of his daughter. The marriage ended in separation. In 1935 Quiroga was appointed Uruguay's honorary consul in San Ignacio.

Quiroga was plagued throughout his life by his illnesses. He suffered from mental disorders, and he began to drink to dispel his bouts of tension and anxiety. Quiroga was diagnosed as having cancer and he committed suicide on February 19, 1937, while he was still at the clinic.

The obsession with death, the conviction that men cannot escape their fates, and the emphasis on the bizarre or monstrous mark the author's tales. While Jack London wrote about the barren ice-covered plains of the far North, Quiroga set his stories in the wilds of the Amazon. His most famous collections are Cuentos de amor, de locura, y de muerte (1917) and Los desterrados (1926). Cuentos de selva (1918) was animal fables for children. Anaconda (1921) was told in the style of Kipling's Jungle Book and described the world of snakes, how they battle with each other and with men. Quiroga's technique as a short story writer is presented in 'Manual de cuentista perfecto' (1927). Quiroga's first collection of poems, Los arrecifes de coral, appeared in 1901. He also published two novels and a play.

For further reading: Vida y obra de Horacio Quiroga by J.M. Delgado and A.J. Brignole (1939); Horacio Quiroga by M. Seymour-Smith (1952); Horacio Quiroga by Noé Jitrik (1967); Genio y figura de Horacio Quiroga by Emir Rodríguez Monegal (1967); El desterrado by Emir Rodríguez Monegal (1968); Aproximaciones a Horacio Quiroga by Ángel Flores (1976); El estilo de Horacio Quiroga en sus cuentos by Nicolás A.S. Bratosevich (1980); Trayectoria de Horacio Quiroga by Enrique Espinosa (1980); Horacio Quiroga by José Luis Martínez Morales (1982); El Quiroga nue yo conocí by Enrique Amorim (1983); Quiroga by Peter R. Beardsell (1986); Testimonios Autobiograficos De Horacio Quiroga, ed. by Norma Perez Martin (1997)

Books by Horacio Quiroga