Florencio Sanchez

Florencio Sánchez
Photograph taken from the book Historia de la Literatura Argentina Vol I.
Born	Florencio Sánchez (1875-01-17)January 17, 1875 Montevideo, Uruguay
Died	November 7, 1910(1910-11-07) (aged 35) Milan, Italy
Nationality	Uruguayan
Occupation	writer, journalist, politic
Spouse(s)	Catalina Raventos

Florencio Sánchez (January 17, 1875 – November 7, 1910) was a Uruguayan playwright, journalist and political figure. He is considered one of the founding fathers of theater in the River Plate region of Argentina and Uruguay.

Florencio Sánchez's parents moved him and his eleven siblings to the city of Treinta y Tres and later to Minas, where he attended elementary school. At a very young age, he published a few satirical articles in a newspaper and participated as actor and author in some family musicals (with staged representations).

After abandoning high school, Sánchez alternated his life between Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rosario. His intense works in journalism and theater unfolded in these cities. In Montevideo he joined the International Center for Social Studies (a literary organization). In Rosario he was a secretary for the writing department of La República ("The Republic"), a publication led by Lisandro de la Torre. His first writings of a social and political nature were published in La República. The critical and scathing realism was apparent in his literary work for the newspaper; this writing style would later characterize his theatrical productions.

Sánchez moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1892, after spending some time in Rosario, a city in Santa Fe, Argentina. He remained there for two years. After his return to Montevideo in 1894, he began working as a journalist for the newspapers El Nacional ("The National"), La Razón ("The Reason"), and El Siglo ("The Century"). He published interviews and wrote political articles in which he incorporated dialogues among the protagonists. In Buenos Aires, he began to make a name for himself as a journalist. He started to participate in intellectual circles and the Buenos Aires night life.

In 1897, when the civil war broke out in Uruguay, he returned to his home country and fought under Aparicio Saravia, thus continuing his family's history of political action. During this phase, he came into contact with intellectuals such as Eduardo Acevedo Díaz. Shortly after his wartime service, his political affiliation with anarchy began. He wrote in La Protesta ("The Protest") and in the magazine El Sol ("The Sun"), the latter being led by Alberto Ghiraldo. Sánchez's plays Ladrones ("Thieves") and Puertas adentro ("Doors Within") were written in the anarchist model.