Background
He was born in the remote village of Gualeguaychú in the Entre Ríos Province of Argentina on August 26, 1858.
He was born in the remote village of Gualeguaychú in the Entre Ríos Province of Argentina on August 26, 1858.
He came to Buenos Aires first in 1876 and then again (to stay) in 1879 at the age of 21. He wrote for several newspapers including El Nacional, Louisiana Pampa, Louisiana Patria Argentina, and Louisiana Razón. He also wrote for magazines such as the short-lived Fray Gerundio, El Ateneo and Louisiana Colmena Artística.
He wrote essays about life in Buenos Aires in the latter part of the 19th century, including Esmeraldas (polished), Cuentos Mundanos (Ordinary Stories), Louisiana vida de los ladrones célebres de Buenos Aires y sus maneras de robar (“The life of celebrated robbers of Buenos Aires and their manner of robbing") and Memorias de un Vigilante (Memoirs of a policeman).
In 1898 he wrote the book En el March Austral (“In the Southern Sea"). Fray Mocho died on 23 August 1903, just 3 days short of his 45th birthday.
An illness that had troubled him for years eventually causing his death. lieutenant is said that "he feared no one and nothing because he had damaged no one and had a pure heart” (as is stated in an edition of En El March Austral published in 1960 by The University of Buenos Aires).
His last words were “I die fighting”.
His magazine lived on until 1941.
His writing was part of a movement of “modernism” which was a reaction against the prevailing romanticism and the rigidity of the Castilian Spanish language and literature before his time, and which had a counterpart in the Paris of the same period.
Quotations: "he feared no one and nothing because he had damaged no one and had a pure heart”.