Luis Franco (writer)

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Luis Franco (1898–1988) was an Argentine poet and essayist who taught himself and chose rural life over Buenos Aires’ academic world. Born in Belén, Catamarca, he was the son of Luis Antonio Franco and Balbina Acosta, and spent most of his life on his father's cattle farm. At 17 he won a prize for Oda primaveral, traveling on a mule from Catamarca to Tucumán to receive it; the trip was noted in Caras y Caretas. Horacio Quiroga helped him early on, introducing him to Leopoldo Lugones, and Franco met writers like Roberto Arlt and Gabriela Mistral. Yet he found Buenos Aires culture hard to fit into and returned to Belén after high school to write and work the land.

After the 1930 Uriburu coup, Franco broke with right-wing writers and explored Argentina’s past in essays about saints and devils of the 1800s, in a distinctive voice. He became a political writer with Marxist, Trotskyist leanings and helped found Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in 1982. In the 1950s he contributed to Estrategia magazine with other Trotskyists. He refused university posts, preferring independence from bourgeois academia. He died penniless on June 1, 1988, in a nursing home in Ciudadela, Buenos Aires Province. Friends recall him quietly writing in cafes, such as Bar Savoy, using a Gloria notebook and a navy blue Bic pen.