Manuel Ugarte

Manuel Ugarte (1875–1951) was an Argentine author, writer and member of the Argentinian Socialist Party.

Manuel Baldomero Ugarte was born in San José de Flores, now part of the City of Buenos Aires, on 27 February 1875. His father was Floro Ugarte and his mother Sabina Rivero. His only brother, Floro Melitón Ugarte, born nine years later, was a music composer and director of the famous Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires.

Manuel Ugarte spent all his life fighting for the unity of Latin America.Among Argentines at the time, he was doing the most for the political unification of the Spanish American continent. His preaching (nationalist anti-imperialism and Hispanicism with socialist touches) was spread in the press throughout the Americas and Europe. He began his public life alongside Lugones, Payró, Gerchunoff, Galvez and Ingenieros. He founded La Revista Literaria, which, among others, published the works of Rubén Darío and Ricardo Jaimes Freyre.

During his journeys, he exchanged ideas and intellectual dialogue with important men in the political and cultural fields, attested in a profuse correspondence of marked historical interest kept in the Archivo General de la Nación at Buenos Aires.

Rubén Darío, Miguel de Unamuno, Delmira Agustini, R. Blanco Fombona, Henri Barbusse, Manuel Gálvez, Haya de la Torre, José Vasconscelos, Blanca Luz Brum, etc. can be counted among his friends and correspondents. Leader of the Socialist Party, he represented it in various congresses of the Socialist Second International organization at the beginning of the 20th century. When he left socialism, he was a fervent neutralist during World War I.

General Perón named him ambassador to Mexico in 1946. He later served as ambassador to Nicaragua and Cuba. These nominations, which came close to his death, were the only recognition he received in his country.

He lived many years in Paris; Nice, France; and Valparaíso, Chile. He died in Nice in 1951.

A street in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires is named after him.

During his life, he visited every single capital city of Latin America to "get to know better the region he has committed his life to defend". He gave speeches in every country of the Iberian America and also in some cities of the United States, Spain and France.

Among his books are:

• El porvenir de América Latina
• Vendimias juveniles
• El destino de un continente
• Cuentos de la Pampa
• El dolor de escribir
• El dramático destino de una generación
• El naufragio de los Argonautas