Benito Lynch, Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 novelist and short-story writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, was born in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 on 25 July 1885, and died La Plata

La Plata

La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....

, Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

, 23 December 1951.

Origins and life

He came from a family of Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 origin, settled on the Río de la Plata

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...

 region since the 18th century, descendants of Patrick Lynch

Patrick Lynch (Argentina)

Patrick Lynch, born 1715, was an Irish emigrant who became a significant landowner in Rio de la Plata, which is now part of Argentina. He was born in Galway and was the second son of Patrick Lynch of Lydican Castle and Agnes Blake...

 from Galway

Galway

Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...

. He spent his childhood and adolescence in his grandfather's, Ventura Lynch, large country estate. After the estate was sold, the family settled in La Plata, newly-built capital the Buenos Aires Province

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

. Lynch was a life-long recluse à la Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...

, living all his life with two unmarried sisters in a large old house in La Plata.

An eccentric, Lynch's quirky short stories, (he wrote more than a hundred) in a neo-gauchoesque

Literatura Gauchesca

Gaucho literature, also known as gauchesco style was a literary movement purporting to use the language of the gauchos, comparable to the American cowboy, and reflecting their mentality...

 manner that sometimes evokes magic realism

Magic realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

, have been often filmed and dramatized. He also strikes a genuinely and authentically popular vein.

He was also a sport fan. He played football (soccer) in 1901. He played in the first organized match recorded in La Plata. He was a member of oldest club in La Plata, Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, and he played the first game ever organized by the club that is currently the oldest club in America (founded in 1887) that practice professional soccer.

Works

• Plata dorada (1909)
• Los caranchos de la Florida (1916)
• Raquela (1918)
• Las mal calladas (1923)
• El romance de un gaucho (1923)
• El inglés de los güesos (1924)
• El antojo de la patrona (1925)
• Palo verde (1925)
• De los campos porteños (1931)
• El estanciero (1931)
• Cuentos criollos (1940)

Many stories, some worthy of anthologizing, remain uncollected. They appeared in newspapers and reviews of the time such as La Nación

La Nación

La Nación is an Argentine daily newspaper. The country's leading conservative paper, the centrist Clarín is its main competitor. It is the only newspaper in Argentina still published in broadsheet format.-Overview:...

, El Hogar, Mundo Argentino, Caras y Caretas and Leoplán.