Ricardo Guiraldes

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AUTHORS OF THE WORLD...RICARDO GUIRALDES....WATERCOLOUR...Ricardo Güiraldes (13 February 1886 — 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. 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. In 1927, intending to head back to India because of his increasing interest in Hinduism, Güiraldes traveled once more to France. He went first to Arcachon, but it developed that he was sick with Hodgkin's disease. He was brought to Paris