Manuel Gálvez

Manuel Gálvez (born July 18, 1882, Paraná, Argentina—died November 14, 1962, Buenos Aires) was a novelist and biographer, whose documentation of a wide range of social ills in Argentina in the first half of the 20th century earned him an important position in modern Spanish American literature.

Gálvez studied law at the National University of Buenos Aires, graduating in 1904 and making that city his permanent residence. He was an inspector of secondary education from 1906 to 1931. He founded (1903) and directed the literary magazine Ideas and visited Europe on several occasions.

Gálvez is best remembered for his realistic novels of Argentinian life, which deal with conflict in urban society. In La maestra normal (1914; “The Schoolmistress”), his first and generally considered his best novel, he captures the pettiness and monotony of life in a small Argentinian city before the quickening pace of modernity shattered old provincial ways. In his later years, Gálvez turned to historical novels and novelized biographies of Argentinian figures, which, despite their popular success, were less enthusiastically received by the critics than his earlier realistic fiction.