Resumen de Horacio Quiroga, a Writer on the Limits

Carlos Abreu Mendoza

• Merging nature and death, two favorite themes in Horacio Quiroga’s work, this article demonstrates his singularity as an author who rethinks the fatal confrontation between man and nature that has long marked Latin American letters. Quiroga’s answer to such a pervasive Latin American subject emerges in the short stories that take place in the jungle of Misiones. I propose to narrow down this comprehensive canon to focus on five short stories that share a similar plotline: “La miel silvestre” (1911), “A la deriva” (1912), “El hombre muerto” (1920), “Los desterrados” (1925) and “Las moscas” (1933). Using Eugenio Trías’ concept of “limit,” I explore death’s liminal dimension in Quiroga’s narrative, which poses an alternative to the appeal of sublimity in Latin American literature and positions his work in an interstitial space within this tradition.