Quiroga, Horacio

Quiroga, Horacio (ôrä`syō kērō`gä), 1878–1937, Uruguayan short-story writer. Quiroga is considered a master of the short story. His work was deeply influenced by Kipling, Poe, Chekhov, and Maupassant as well as by the modernismo movement. In 1900 he took a short trip to Paris, then went to Argentina, where he lived the rest of his life—a good deal of it as an unsuccessful agricultural pioneer. His collections of stories Cuentos de la selva (1918), Anaconda (1921), and El desierto (1924), which echo the tales of Kipling, reflect his life in the jungle. His concern with strange and morbid themes is evident in Cuentos de amor, de locura, y de muerte [tales of love, madness, and death] (1917). Quiroga's writings also include witty, sophisticated stories such as those in Mas alla [beyond] (1935).

Bibliography

See A. Livingston, tr. and ed., South American Jungle Tales (1959).