Eugenio Cambaceres (24 February 1843 – 14 June 1889) was anArgentine writer and politician. In the 1880s he wrote four books, withSin rumbo (1885) being his masterpiece. His promising literary career was cut short when he died oftuberculosis.
Cambaceres was born and died inBuenos Aires. He was the son of aFrenchchemist father who immigrated toArgentina in 1833 and a mother native toBuenos Aires. Cambaceres went to secondary school at theColegio Nacional Central and then went on to receive alaw degree from theUniversidad de Buenos Aires.[1]
Quickly launching into politics, he was elected to theArgentine Chamber of Deputies and was named secretary of theClub del Progreso in 1870, and in 1873 became Vice President of said organization. However, his denunciations of fraud within his own party led to his downfall, and although he was re-elected to the legislature in 1876 he soon resigned his post and left public life to devote himself to literature. From his career as a liberal politician, perhaps his most important contribution was a controversial tract in a local magazine advocating the separation of Church and State that was quite polemic at the time.
As a writer, he combined thenaturalism ofÉmile Zola and theGoncourt brothers and a localizedrealist character with four novels of apessimistic nature. His first two novels werePot-pourri (1881) andMúsica sentimental: Silbidos de un vago [Sentimental Music: Whistles of a Lazy Man] (1884). Both lack a precise plot and leave many threads hanging, containing stories of adultery within a pessimistic and weary atmosphere. The novelty of dealing with such a lurid topic and in such a crude manner provoked a scandalous repercussion and critics did not hesitate in directly attacking Cambaceres. This changed the composition and style of his later works, which were much better received.
In 1885 he released his most significant novel,Sin Rumbo [Without Direction], where he offered good descriptions of the landscape of sexual pathology, including interesting anecdotes. The year before he died 1887, he publishedEn la sangre (In the Blood), a story about the son ofItalian immigrants of humble origin that advances his social standing by marrying the daughter of a wealthy estate, only to squander his fortune and end up with a miserable life. Through his writing, Cambaceres dealt with the problems associated with the arrival ofImmigrants to Argentina and the social changes of his time, but ended up taking the perspective of the high bourgeoisie that critiqued the lower classes and European immigration.
Eugenio Cambaceres traveled to Europe and was inParis when he died at 45 years of age, in 1889. His daughter,Rufina Cambaceres, was only four years old.
