''Don Segundo Sombra'' is a

1926 Events January * January 3 – Theodoros Pangalos declares himself dictator in Greece. * January 8 **Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Hejaz. ** Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuy ascends the throne, the last monarch of V ...

novel by

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

rancher Ricardo Güiraldes. Like

José Hernández José Hernández may refer to: Arts and entertainment * José Hernández (writer) (1834–1886), Argentine writer * Pepe Hern (José Hernández Bethencourth, 1927–2009), American actor * José Hernández, American singer (born 1940), better known ...

's poem '' Martín Fierro'', its protagonist is a gaucho. However, unlike Hernandez's poem, ''Don Segundo Sombra'' does not romanticize the figure of the gaucho, but simply examines the character as a shadow (''sombra'') cast across Argentine history. Unlike the character of Martin Fierro, who is purely a fictional creation, Don Segundo Sombra was loosely based and inspired by the real life of Segundo Ramírez, a native of the town of San Antonio de Areco, in Buenos Aires Province. The novel made it to the big screen in the 1969 Argentine film of the same name, directed by Manuel Antín. Ricardo Güiraldes, who was a friend and literary partner of Jorge Luis Borges –they both founded the legendary magazine ''Proa'' –, managed to develop a simple and modern language for the novel: a high quality mixture of literacy and colourful local expressions that earned him a major standing among the best representatives of " criollismo". Even though it may be considered as having a continuity of sorts with '"Martin Fierro"', the protagonist is more than an extinguished gaucho elegy (like José Hernández's character is); instead, ''Don Segundo Sombra'' was designed to present (or propose) a series of new ethical examples to a youth that Güiraldes considered disoriented and restless during his time.

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* * 1926 novels Argentine novels adapted into films Argentine novels Sombra Sombra Novels set in Argentina {{1920s-novel-stub