The Exiles and Other Stories
Page 20
Tucumán. Argentine province at the foot of the Andes, 1,000 kilometers west of Posadas.
Yabebirí (river). Flows west-northwest from the interior of Misiones and enters the Paraná just southwest of San Ignacio. Quiroga’s property was on this stream.
A Quiroga Chronology
1878. December 31. Birth of Horacio Quiroga in Salto, Uruguay, on the River Uruguay across from Concordia, Argentina, and about 500 kilometers southwest of Posadas.
1879. Death of his father in a hunting accident.
1879–1893. Residence in Córdoba, Argentina; return to Salto (1883); mother’s remarriage and move to Montevideo (1891); return to Salto (1893).
1896. Suicide of HQ’s stepfather, in despair over his bad health.
1897. First publications by HQ, in magazines of Salto. He later edits the short-lived Revista de Salto (1899–1900).
1900. March–July. Trip to Paris which results in a travel journal, Diario de viaje a París, not published till 1949. Unlike many Latin American writers, he does not become an ardent literary Francophile. Back in Salto, he founds a literary society with several friends. In November he takes second prize in a short-story contest, and from then on publishes regularly in Montevideo.
1901. Publication in Montevideo of his first book, Los arrecifes de coral (Coral Reefs), containing poems as well as stories.
1902. Accidentally kills a close friend with a firearm. Exonerated, he decides to leave for Buenos Aires.
1903. Supports himself by teaching as well as writing. First trip to Misiones, where he discovers the subtropical forest.
1904. Becomes a cotton planter in the Argentine Chaco. Publication in Buenos Aires of his second book, El crimen del otro (The Other’s Crime), short stories.
1905. Visits Corrientes. Later shuts down his cotton venture and returns to Buenos Aires. Writes the important nouvelle “Los perseguidos” (The Pursued), which marks the beginning of his best work. His reputation is on the rise.
1906. New teaching position. One of his students, Ana María Cires, will later become his first wife. Trip to Misiones in December, seeking property to buy. A month later visits Paraguay.
1908. Publishes a novel, Historia de un amor turbio (Story of a Troubled Love).
1908–1909. November–March. Spring–summer in Misiones, where he now owns land overlooking the Paraná.
1909. Marriage to Ana María Cires in December. They settle in San Ignacio, Misiones, but return to Buenos Aires for another year.
1911. Birth of a daughter, Eglé. Obtains a government sinecure in San Ignacio and resigns his teaching position. Begins cultivation of yerba mate on a large tract he has bought near the River Yabebirí.
1912. Birth of a son, Dario.
1914. Tries charcoal-making and later orange-distilling in collaboration with friends.
1915. Ana María commits suicide by taking poison. A week passes before she finally dies, in her early twenties.
1916. Return to Buenos Aires.
1917. Publication of HQ’s fourth book, Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte (Tales of Love, Madness, and Death); its success results in another edition the next year. His stories become models for a great deal of “nativist” Latin American fiction to come. Assumes the first of several minor posts in the Uruguayan diplomatic service.
1918. Publication of Cuentos de la selva para los niños (Jungle Tales for Children), which are also enjoyed by adults, and have since been translated into several languages, including English (1922).
1919. Another book of stories, El salvaje (The Savage).
1920. Publishes a play, Las sacrificadas (Sacrificed Women), based on an early love affair of his own (1898) which he had already treated in a story (1912).
1921. His eighth book, Anaconda, short stories.
1924. El desierto (The Wilderness), stories and other texts in prose.
1925. Passionate love affair during a stay in Misiones; the girl’s family is opposed and the romance ends sadly. In Spain a selection of his stories is published, under the title of one of the most famous ones, La gallina degollada (The Decapitated Chicken).
1926. Los desterrados (The Exiles). Many regard this book as Quiroga’s best. Of its eight stories, five are included in the present selection.
1927. Marriage to María Elena Bravo, whom he had met as a friend of his daughter Eglé. She was almost thirty years younger than HQ.
1928. Birth of a daughter, called Pitoca.
1929. Publishes a novel, Pasado amor (Past Love), based on the Misiones affair of 1925.
1931. Return to San Ignacio.
1935. Más allá (Farther On), his last book of stories.
1936. Returns to Buenos Aires in bad health, later discovering he has cancer.
1937. February. Commits suicide in the hospital by taking cyanide. Ceremonies honoring HQ take place in Salto, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires. The long process of collecting his works is begun; though most of them have been collected and published, a definitive Complete Works has yet to appear.
1968. Publication of El desterrado: Vida y obra de Horatio Quiroga (Buenos Aires: Losada), by Emir Rodríguez Monegal, the definitive biography, which was preceded by more than a dozen other studies on Quiroga by Rodríguez Monegal. This chronology is an adaptation and abridgment of his “Indice cronológico,” which appears on pages 293–299 of El desterrado.
1976. Publication by the University of Texas Press of The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, selected and translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Most of these stories, like those of the present collection, are set in the frontier region where Argentina meets Paraguay and Brazil.