Fray Mocho ( Gualeguaychú, 26 August 1858 –

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, 23 August 1903) was the pen name for the Argentine writer and journalist José Ciriaco Alvarez (also known as José Sixto Alvarez). He moved to

first in 1876 and then again to stay in 1879 at the age of 21. He was known to his friends as "Mocho" (blunt) and later added the title "Fray" (brother, as in a

Friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

). He wrote for several newspapers including ''El Nacional'', ''La Pampa'', ''La Patria Argentina'', and '' La Razón''. He also wrote for magazines such as the short-lived ''Fray Gerundio'', ''El Ateneo'' and ''La 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), ''La 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 Mar Austral'' ("In the Southern Sea").

Biography

The period in which he flourished was a heady time in Buenos Aires. The nation of Argentina had finally come together with the uniting of the city of Buenos Aires with the rest of the country,

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (; born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the second President of Argentina. His writing s ...

and Bartolomé Mitre were still alive, and Buenos Aires was striving to become the "Queen City" of South America. He was the founder and first editor of the Argentine Magazine '' Caras y Caretas'' ("Faces and Masks"). The magazine featured a mixture of cartoons and illustrations along with national and foreign subjects taken from social news, notes of general interest and fashion. The magazine also published literary and rural literature. Its contributors include some of the leading lights of Argentine letters: Roberto Payró,

Horacio Quiroga Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza (31 December 1878 – 19 February 1937) was a Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer. He wrote stories which, in their jungle settings, used the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of m ...

, and

José Ingenieros José Ingenieros (born Giuseppe Ingegnieri, April 24, 1877October 31, 1925) was an Argentine physician, pharmacist, positivist philosopher and essayist. He was born in Palermo (Italy), and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School ...

, among others. He was the first professional writer of Argentina. In his descriptions of regional customs, the narrator is a watching observer. He wrote at times in the different modes of Buenos Aires speech including the "

lunfardo Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and from there spread to other urban are ...

" (the argot or slang of Buenos Aires which still exists). His writing was part of a movement of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

which was a reaction against the prevailing

romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

and the rigidity of the Castilian

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

and literature before his time, and which had a counterpart in the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

of the same period. One of his most praised works was the book ''En El Mar Austral'' (On the Southern Sea), a tale of a year spent traveling on a whaling boat around the southern tip of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and Argentina (

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

) beginning in the town of

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Are ...

in Chile. It describes in detail the scenery and life in the southernmost tip of South America. It does not appear that Mocho ever got within 500 miles of Tierra del Fuego and yet his descriptions are extremely accurate, and the source of his information is still not known. Mocho died on 23 August 1903, just three days short of his 45th birthday; an illness that had troubled him for years eventually causing his death. It 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 Mar Austral'' published in 1960 by The

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigi ...

). His last words were "I die fighting" ("muero luchando" in Spanish). His magazine lived on until 1941.

Bibliography

* 1887: ''Galería de ladrones de la capital'' * 1897: ''Memorias de un vigilante''"Memorias de un vigilante"
by Fray Mocho on Gutenberg.org website * 1897: ''Viaje al país de los matreros'' * 1898: ''En el mar austral'' * 1899: '' Caras y Caretas'' * 1906: ''Cuentos de Fray Mocho'' (posthumous)

References

External links

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Caras y caretas magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mocho, Fray 1858 births 1903 deaths Argentine journalists Male journalists Argentine male novelists Mocho Fray People from Buenos Aires 19th-century novelists 19th-century male writers Argentine magazine founders

Biography

Bibliography

Further reading

References

External links