Monday, October 06, 2008

Muestrario Gaucho

I picked this book for 50 cents at the university library's remainder sale. I didn't know what I'd do with it, but the subject was interesting enough and the illustrations beautiful. Gauchos, if you don't know, are the Argentine equivalent of the Wild West Cowboys, always driving cattle and shooting their way out. (As if... But you know what I'm talking about.) The book contains short essays on the Gaucho way of life. Since I don't speak Spanish, I don't know what the texts are really about. I've found a good home for this and am sending it overseas, but thought I'd post the cover and some illos first.

Elbio Bernárdez Jacques's Muestrario Gaucho was published by Ciordia & Rodriguez, Buenos Aires, in 1953. The illustrations are by Juan Hohmann.










As for the Gauchos, there's a book on them, written by an American (I believe), called Amongst the Gauchos. It was translated in Finnish and published here in 1947. And John Benteen's AKA Richard Meade's (or was Ben Haas his real name?) Fargo has at least one paperback adventure set in Argentine in the 1910s.

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