Federico Gana

Federico Gana

Federico Gana (born January 15, 1867 in Santiago de Chile , † April 22, 1926 there ) was a Chilean writer.

biography

Federico Gana was the son of Federico Gana Munizaga and Rasario Gana Castro. At the age of 14 he wrote his first essay La prosa patética , dedicated to his late sister Ema. Federico Gana studied law at the university in Chile. In 1890 he completed his law degree and in the same year his first short story Pobre Vieja appeared in the weekly La Actualidad in Santiago. After his studies he went to London , where he worked as a diplomat for the Chilean delegation. While in Europe, he visited Belgium , France and the Netherlands . His stay in Europe lasted a year.

In 1891 there was an uprising in Chile against the government of the then President José Manuel Balmaceda Fernández . As a result, Federico Gana returned to Chile in April 1892 and his diplomatic career ended. Upon his return he began to write the story La Señora .

In 1893 he worked as a lawyer, but had to interrupt because of illness. After that he spent a long time on the family farm in Linares . There he got to know rural life up close and developed an interest in rural life. At that time he wrote the short story Un carácter . This story appeared for the first time in 1894 in the journal El Año Literario under the title Por un perro . It was not until 1916 that this story appeared under the title Un carácter in his book Días de campo .

In 1902 he met Blanca Subercaseaux del Río. In 1906 his father died and in the same year he married Blanca. The two had 5 children together: Blanca, Luz, Marta, Olga and José Francisco.

His stories have appeared in several newspapers and magazines. From 1906 he began to publish his stories in the magazine Zig Zag . In 1926 he had to be hospitalized for asthma. Federico Gana died on April 22, 1926.

Works

• Días de campo (1916)
• Cuentos completos (1926)
• Manchas de color y nuevos cuentos (1934)

literature

• José Miguel Oviedo: Antología crítica del cuento hispanoamericano del siglo XX . Madrid 2005, pp. 174-176
• Luis Leal: Historia del cuento hispanoamericano . México 1966