Novel
Don Segundo Sombra
Ricardo Güiraldes · 1926
Synopsis
Fabio Cáceres tells his own story, according to Diario Uno: a son whom his father did not acknowledge, he was left in the care of aunts, and begins his account at the age of fourteen. He meets Don Segundo, a gaucho who becomes his master and a father figure, and follows him on journeys driving cattle across the pampa of Buenos Aires. It has also been read as intended to offer moral examples to an anxious youth.
Context
Published on 16 May 1926, according to a Mendoza daily, in the town of San Antonio de Areco, the novel enjoyed an immediate success, reports Biografías y Vidas. Its hero is inspired by Segundo Ramírez, a peasant of the place. The French translation by Marcelle Auclair, revised by Jules Supervielle and Jean Prévost, appeared from Gallimard in 1932 and was reissued with a preface by Supervielle in 1953, according to the BnF. Manuel Antín made a film of it in 1969.
Who it is for
A novel of apprenticeship in Spanish, told in the first person, rich in the vocabulary of cattle-raising and of the pampas.
Prizes and reception
An immediate success on its publication in 1926; a major place in criollismo.
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