"Drifting" by Horacio Quiroga (1912).

The First South American Master of the Short Story- The Edgar Allan Poe of the Amazon Basin 

Horacio Quiroga (1878 to 1937-Salto Uruguay) is considered the first modern South American short story writer.    He called Edgar Allen Poe his greatest teacher (and he lead a life at least as tragic as Poe's).    He has been called "The Edgar Allen Poe of the Amazon" as he is most famous for his horror stories set in the jungles of the Amazon.   His stories are about people at the end of their rope, people driven mad by the isolation of the jungle,  the borders between hallucinations and reality and above all, death.   

Quiroga's father accidentally shot himself  before he was three months old.   Quiroga accidentally killed his best friend while cleaning a gun.    His best friend, also an author, shot himself after a bad review.   He had several very doomed from the start love affairs and marriages    When he was 22 his step father shot himself.   

At about twenty two Quiroga  discovered Edgar Allen Poe and knew he must become  a short story writer.   He also wrote several novels but his 200 or so short stories are his legacy to the world.   At about this same time he went along as official photographer on a trip with the famous Argentine poet, Leopoldo  Lugones, to  visit Jesuit missions in the Amazon region.    Quiroga fell in love with the jungle areas of the Amazon.   He was enthralled by the lush danger, the feeling of unlimited fecundity, the strangeness to him of the native people, and one must admit the cheapness with which land could then be bought there.   He set up a farm there and did many experimental things no one else had tried before.   Most of them were failures (I sense he was best at starting things!) but they show he had a great practical intelligence not just literary.   (There is a very interesting article on him HERE that details his numerous romances.   

Quiroga is as death obsessed a writer as you are likely to find.  Roberto Bolano greatly admired his work.  "Drifting" is a painfully vivid account of what it was like to die from snake bite in the Amazon basin in 1910, hours from any medical care.  Quiroga's description of the impact of the bite is really brilliant.  It hurt to see the victim's leg swell up to double size.   The man perceived his only hope for surviving was by taking a five hour canoe ride to the nearest bigger town where medical help is available and where he has a friend.  The beauty of the river is almost that of an hallucination.  We see the man become increasingly unable to tell reality from his snake vermin induced perceptions.  The riverine journey becomes a passage to another world.   I don't know what dying from a snake bite feels like but now I can imagine it.

This story was translated by Margaret Pedar.

"Sunstroke" by Horacio Quiroga (1908).

The First South American Master of the Short Story- The Edgar Allan Poe of the Amazon Basin 

Horacio Quiroga (1878 to 1937-Salto Uruguay) is considered the first modern South American short story writer.    He called Edgar Allen Poe his greatest teacher (and he lead a life at least as tragic as Poe's).    He has been called "The Edgar Allen Poe of the Amazon" as he is most famous for his horror stories set in the jungles of the Amazon.   His stories are about people at the end of their rope, people driven mad by the isolation of the jungle,  the borders between hallucinations and reality and above all, death.   

Quiroga's father accidentally shot himself  before he was three months old.   Quiroga accidentally killed his best friend while cleaning a gun.    His best friend, also an author, shot himself after a bad review.   He had several very doomed from the start love affairs and marriages    When he was 22 his step father shot himself.   

At about twenty two Quiroga  discovered Edgar Allen Poe and knew he must become  a short story writer.   He also wrote several novels but his 200 or so short stories are his legacy to the world.   At about this same time he went along as official photographer on a trip with the famous Argentine poet, Leopoldo  Lugones, to  visit Jesuit missions in the Amazon region.    Quiroga fell in love with the jungle areas of the Amazon.   He was enthralled by the lush danger, the feeling of unlimited fecundity, the strangeness to him of the native people, and one must admit the cheapness with which land could then be bought there.   He set up a farm there and did many experimental things no one else had tried before.   Most of them were failures (I sense he was best at starting things!) but they show he had a great practical intelligence not just literary.   (There is a very interesting article on him HERE that details his numerous romances.   

Yesterday I acquired a collection of short stories by Horacio Quiroga.  He was one of Roberto Bolano's favorite writers.   I have read and posted prior today on seven of his stories.   His best known stories are "The Decapitated Chicken" and "The Feather Pillow".  Like these two stories "Sunstroke" deals with death, making use of belief's about death of people of Uruguay.  There are interesting similarities between some of the views of Irish country people in the same period.  

Quiroga wrote a lot of children's stories.  The protagonists of this story are a group of dogs who all belong to the local patron.  They talk to each other.  They know they have a good master and a better life than most of the dogs in the area.  He does not beat them and they are well fed.  One morning one of the dogs see death approaching their master.  All of the dogs fear his passing will mean the end of their comfortable existence.  It was a lot of fun to listen to the dogs talk and running the field with the pack.  Death does not seem to come back and the dogs hope it was all a false alarm.

Quiroga masterfully describes the countryside, plantation life, the world of the dogs, and their relationship to each other and the patron.  The story does not end happily, few of his seem to have one.  The story was translated by Margaret Paden.

"The Flamingo's Stockings" by Horacio Quiroga -Project 196 Uruguay

"The Flamingo's Stockings" by Horacio Quiroga (1918, 5 pages)

Project 196

Uruguay

22 of 196 Countries

Horacio Quiroga

1. Georgia 
2. Canada
3. U. S. A.
4. The Republic of Korea
5. Antigua and Barbuda 
6. Haiti
7. Trinidad and Tobago 
8. Ukraine
9. Cameroon
10. Botswana
11. Sudan
12. Dominica 
13. Israel
14. Syria
15. Ethiopia
16. Zimbabwe
17. Peru
18. Chile
19. South Africa
20. Turkey
21. Peru
22. Uruguay 

"The Feather Pillow" a truly horrifying story set deep in the Amazon basin

"The Decapitated Chicken" (If this story does not give you chills, have yourself checked over-the post also contains links to three other of his stories.)

Uruguay was home to the great Horacio Quiroga.   I have read and posted on several of his stories and I would say if you like horror stories you will love the stories I have posted on (there are links in my posts to his stories in English).  Read one and you will seek out others!

In a list of "must read short story writers" Roberto Bolano listed him first.  

Horacio Quiroga (1878 to 1937-Salto, Uruguay) is considered the first modern South American short story writer.    He called Edgar Allen Poe his greatest teacher (and he lead a life at least as tragic as Poe's).    He has been called "The Edgar Allen Poe of the Amazon" as he is most famous for his horror stories set in the jungles of the Amazon.   His stories are about people at the end of their rope, people driven mad by the isolation of the jungle,  the borders between hallucinations and reality and above all, death.   

Quiroga's father accidentally shot himself  before he was three months old.   Quiroga accidentally killed his best friend while cleaning a gun.    His best friend, also an author, shot himself after a bad review.   He had several very doomed from the start love affairs and marriages    When he was 22 his step father shot himself.   

At about twenty two Quiroga  discovered Edgar Allen Poe and knew he must become  a short story writer.   He also wrote several novels but his 200 or so short stories are his legacy to the world.   At about this same time he went along as official photographer on a trip with the famous Argentine poet, Leopoldo  Lugones, to  visit Jesuit missions in the Amazon region.    Quiroga fell in love with the jungle areas of the Amazon.   He was enthralled by the lush danger, the feeling of unlimited fecundity, the strangeness to him of the native people, and one must admit the cheapness with which land could then be bought there.   He set up a farm there and did many experimental things no one else had tried before.   Most of them were failures (I sense he was best at starting things!) but they show he had a great practical intelligence not just literary.   

In addition to his horror stories, he wrote a number of children's stories, collected in the book Jungle Tales, 1918.   His children's stories were written with the market place in mind, while his short stories were written to express his passion for the art form.   Saying that "The Flamingo's Stockings" is a pretty scary children's story.  I somehow do not think you will find its like in the children's section of any big chain book store now.  I am sure any editor of children's books would tell the author he was crazy to think they will print the story.  

The story is set at a party given by the vipers.   All of the animals of the Amazon were invited, frogs, alligators, coral snakes, toads, turtles and fish.   "The alligators to adorn themselves, slung garlands of bananas around their necks and smoked huge Paraguayan cigars".  The toads are decked out in their best, the frogs are perfumed from head to tail and each one carried a small torch.   The most splendid of all were the coral snakes, dressed in long satin gowns.   "Prettiest of all were the vipers.  Each one, without exception, was wearing a dancers costume matching the color of its skin".   The flamingos are the only ones not enjoying themselves.  They had white legs at that time and were jealous of everyone else's outfits.   They device a plan to take the outfits of the coral snakes.  Which, as you will discover if you give yourself the pleasure of reading this delightful story, a very big mistake.

You can read "The Flamingo's Story" (translated by Rua Breathnach) here

"The Night of the Ugly Ones" by Benedetti Mario-A Podcast by Miette's Bedtime Story podcast

"The Night of the Ugly Ones" by Mario Benedetti- (A podcast-10:36)


I was very happy to get notified that Miette of Miette's bedtime story podcast has posted two more stories on her marvelous  web page.   I said it before and I will say it again, Miette's bedtime podcast is the only source of literary podcasts (the reading aloud of a literary work) endorsed by The Reading Life.   I find her voice and sometimes wonderfully eccentric style mesmerising and her taste is impeccable.   She has been doing this for seven years and I think you will be amazed by her collection of podcasts.

One of her new selections was "The Night of the Ugly Ones" by Mario Benedetti  (1920 to 2009-Uruguay)    I admit freely I have never heard of Benedetti , and unless you are from Uruguay you may not have either, so I, of course, Googled him.   It turns out he is is a well known Uruguayan poet, journalist, and writer of fiction.   He is evidently famous in Latin American literary circles but is little translated out of Spanish.   The only other author from Uruguay I have read is Horacio Quiroga, often called the Edgar Allan Poe of the Amazon.  (Miete also has a podcast of one of his stories on her web page.)  I loved the five short stories I read by Quiroga and they are all in fact rather scary.    Of course there is no reason to assume that Mario's story would be in a similar mode just because he is also from Uruguay but it is also a story about a dark side of life that most people would not even want to think about.   If anything it is darker in its way than either Poe or Quiroga!

Have you ever been out late at night in a big city, big enough so nobody knows anybody else?  No questions asked about what you were doing that night.    You  see the people in "The Night of the Ugly Ones" but you turn away, or at least I did, I admit,  people so ugly and misshapen either by birth or horrible accident that it hurts to see the common humanity in them.  This story is about very touching, real, and passionate romance between a man and a woman from among "The  Ugly Ones".

One of the "uses" of literature is it lets us or if well done and we open ourselves to it, forces us, to see the humanity in people very other from ourselves.   If this story has a moral, it is an old one, "There but for the Grace of God, go I".

This story is for sure worth the ten minutes it takes to listen to.   While you are on Miette's bedtime podcasts, do yourself a favor and look around!  


Mel u