Acceso usuarios
Rafael Olea Franco
In this paper, I focus on the journal that Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) wrote to record his visit to Paris, from March to July, in the year 1900. It remained as a manuscript until Emir Rodríguez Monegal transcribed it and published it in 1950 as Diario de un viaje a París (Journal of a Visit to Paris). This is the title under which we know this work today. There are several reasons why this text constitutes an outstanding autobiographical record. First of all, it stands out as a striking vision of Paris by a Latin American author. Paris was considered then the world capital of culture and civilization; nevertheless, the image of Paris provided by Quiroga is very different from the ideal city depicted by such authors as Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Rubén Darío. In the second place, the journal is also the record of a formative period in Quiroga’s intellectual development. Some critics contend that the trip to Paris determined Quiroga’s decision to become a writer, but in the present paper, upon the careful analysis of the entries in the journal, I argue that this journey only marks the beginning of an incipient literary call. Finally, the journal is also an extraordinary record of the everyday experiences of a Latin American traveler in Paris, at the turn of the twentieth century.
