When Horacio Quiroga published Anaconda in 1921, he was just entering the prime of his career as a modern writer in terms of context, time, and creative aesthetics. He was born on the last day of 1878 in Salto, at a time when Uruguay was trying (and struggling) to modernize through technological advances arriving from Europe, such as the introduction of the railroad by the British. let us take into account the demographic growth resulting from European immigration, as well as protectionist customs legislation and, in general, the internal peace of the country with a central government in Montevideo, which led to transformations in almost all sociocultural strata.
Influenced by Leopoldo Lugones, who introduced him to modernism, he began to write; he had already founded a literary salon called “Los tres mosqueteros” (The Three Musketeers) and was a contributor to several publications in his country. But it was not until the early years of the twentieth century, already established in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that Quiroga began to attract attention for his short stories and even for his film reviews, of which he was a pioneer in South America. And although he wrote poetry, it was his short stories for which he would be widely read. His stories Los perseguidos (The Persecuted) and later Los puritanos (The Puritans) and El vampiro (The Vampire) reveal not only a psychological interest in the construction of characters and atmospheres, but also the influence of cinema on his narratives. The hint of literary modernity did not hide the renewal of the short story: Quiroga moved away from traditional or historical stories to focus on fantastical environments where the element of surprise prevailed. It was the jungle of Misiones, which he visited as a photographer with Lugones, that provided the mysterious and exuberant setting that he would later bring to life in his literature.
And watch out! By 1921, the author of Anaconda had had to get used to bad news, some of it old and known through family references, such as the fact that his father had died from an accidental gunshot, while his stepfather later committed suicide with a shotgun when Quiroga was only twelve years old. he would never forget another tragedy closer to his youth: in 1902, he accidentally killed a dear friend with a pistol. These continuous deaths would not stop in the writer’s life and, as is well known, would become one of the recurring themes, along with love and madness, in most of his stories. Let us recall some of these titles: El crimen de otro (Another Man’s Crime), Historia de amor turbio (A Story of Turbulent Love), Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte (Tales of Love, Madness, and Death), Cuentos de la selva (Jungle Tales)… The names speak for themselves.
Incidentally, when Quiroga published his famous book Cuentos de la selva (Jungle Tales), many critics attacked his style, which they described as imperfect, ungrammatical, and unacademic. Jorge Luis Borges himself would later say that the Uruguayan writer was a poor copy of Kipling, ignoring Quiroga’s descriptive achievements and the influence of cinema on his narrative style. Hence, in his Decálogo del perfecto cuentista (Decalogue of the Perfect Short Story Writer), Horacio Quiroga admitted, among other guidelines, one that he would apply throughout his future writings:
“Take the characters by the hand and lead them firmly to the end, seeing nothing but the path you have laid out for them. Do not be distracted by seeing what they cannot or are not interested in seeing. Do not abuse the reader. A story is a novel stripped of all excess. Take this as an absolute truth, even if it is not.”
Influenced by Poe, Kipling, Chekhov, and Maupassant, he did not strive to be a stylist of language, but rather an explorer of compelling themes that demanded more than one way of narrating and even the mutation of the narrator. This is what the American master William Faulkner would do in his own way and better.
With Quiroga, readers can access the variety of themes, contexts, and characters that stirred the imagination of this daring writer. Anthologies of his work tend to be very free and sometimes capricious; even the dates of publication are not always recorded, because what matters is to access more than one Quiroga, without disuniting or disparaging him. Gastón Baquero wrote aptly about the author of Anaconda…:
“His entire life had an inner meaning that did not end in his innermost being, within the limits of the individual, but was projected onto the hidden realm of the occult, onto that deep silence that screams so loudly.”
Let us read him in this light, discerning not only the best but also what transcends that era. Let us admit, without fear, that some of the Uruguayan’s stories are guilty of being outdated in terms of writing, if not thematic naivety. Think of El canto del cisne (The Swan Song), to cite just one example. However, when we approach lesser-known and less celebrated texts such as Anaconda, Los inmigrantes (The Immigrants), and La voluntad (The Will), one is left with no doubt that this is a contemporary and still surprising author.
The author of Anaconda y otras narraciones (Anaconda and Other Stories) lived overwhelmed by economic hardship, stormy marital relationships, and the frequent suicides of people close to him: his first wife, Ana María Cirés, took her own life in 1915. There is no doubt, then, that hashish, one of the drugs of fashion in the 19th century, was consumed by the writer. In 1937, upon learning of his gastric cancer, Quiroga took his own life by ingesting cyanide. And to continue paying tribute to this way of leaving the world, his children would commit suicide not long after.
There are those who seek to limit Horacio Quiroga’s literary work to his era, even claiming that he did not go beyond the rural and suburban settings where his characters found life. They have sought to overlook the profound psychology of those characters and the grandiose fantasy that alludes to the writer’s powerful imagination. It is no surprise that his books have been republished and that readers are eager to discover or revisit them, ensuring the spiritual longevity of a classic storyteller in the Spanish language.
