Ricardo Güiraldes

Ricardo Güiraldes (Buenos Aires, 13 February 1886 — Paris, 8 October 1927) was an Argentine novelist and poet, one of the most significant Argentine writers of his era, particularly known for his 1926 novel Don Segundo Sombra, set amongst the gauchos.

Güiraldes was born in Buenos Aires, the second son of a wealthy family of the old landowning aristocracy. His mother was Dolores Goñi, descendant of Ruiz de Arellano, who founded the village of San Antonio de Areco in 1730. Manuel Güiraldes, his father, later intendente (governmentally appointed mayor) of Buenos Aires, was a cultured, educated man, interested in art. Ricardo inherited that predilection; in his youth he sketched rural scenes and painted in oils.

When Güiraldes was one year old, he travelled with his family to Europe, living for four years in Paris near the Rue Saint-Claude. By the age of six, he spoke not only Spanish but French and German. Indeed, French was his first language, and French-language literature would leave a strong mark on his literary style and tastes.

Güiraldes's childhood and youth were divided between the family ranch, La Porteña in San Antonio de Areco, and Buenos Aires. In San Antonio he came into contact with the world of the gauchos, which would figure prominently in his novels Raucho and Don Segundo Sombra; there, too, he met Segundo Ramírez, upon whom he based the title character of the latter work. He loved the country life, but suffered from asthma that sometimes limited his own physical activity, though he generally presented an image of physical vigor.

He was educated by several female teachers and, later, by a Mexican engineer, Lorenzo Ceballos, who recognized and encouraged his literary ambitions. He studied in various institutes and completed his bachillerato at the age of 16. Güiraldes was not a brilliant student; at the Colegio Lacordaire, the Vertiz Institute and the Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza, he studied both architecture and law, but never practiced either one. He did make several attempts at business, all unsuccessful. He traveled to Europe in 1910 in the company of his friend Roberto Leviller, then travelled with another friend, his future brother-in-law Adán Deihl, with whom he visited Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Egypt, Japan, China, Russia, India, Ceylon, and Germany before settling in Paris, where (after his father decided he had had enough of paying the costs of his son's idleness) he stayed with the sculptor Alberto Lagos (to whom he later dedicated Xaimaca), and where he decided to become a writer.

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