Manuel Gallegos Naranjo (Guayaquil, March 26, 1845 – Ibídem, 1917) was an Ecuadorian chronicler, novelist and poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1871 he founded the magazine “Espejo” which enraged President Gabriel García Moreno who exiled him to Chile. Later, on his return to Ecuador, he supported General Ignacio de Veintimilla. He founded the newspaper “Ocho de Septiembre” being his salary paid by the government, at that time he moved to Quito. In 1878 he began to put out his first productions as a writer. Some time later he published a loose leaf attacking Juan León Mera who was a supporter of Garcia Moreno. He collaborated in the newspaper La Nación in his hometown, he was also editor of “Diario Los Andes.” In 1883 he edited “El Almanaque Ecuatoriano” [The Ecuadorian Almanac] which contained all kinds of valuable information in its more than 300 pages. By 1895, due to thrombosis, he was reduced to a wheelchair. His work “Celebridades Malditas” [Cursed Celebrities] is a historical novel about characters from old Guayaquil who became involved in criminal activity as a result of bad decisions in their lives; it was reprinted by the Editorial of the Municipal Library of Guayaquil. Six of his unpublished works live in the Carlos Alberto Rolando National Authors Library in Guayaquil.
Family
Manuel Gallegos Naranjo was the son of Calletano Gallegos de Luna, a native of Rota, Cádiz, Spain, and Rita Naranjo Ledos, a native of Guayaquil.
Works
- 1900 : Fin de siglo : Almanaque de Guayaquil Manuel Gallegos Naranjo. Tipografía Gutenberg. Guayaquil, 1899 – 214, V, [2] p. / 22 cm.
- Lecciones de historia del Ecuador. Tip. “El Vigilante”, 1900 – 168 p. (Read it for free here).
- Guayaquil: novela fantástica. Imprenta “Manabita”, 1901 – 108 p.
- Parnaso ecuatoriano: con apuntamientos biográficos de los poetas y versificadores de la República del Ecuador, desde el siglo XVIII hasta el año de 1879. Imprenta de Manuel V. Flor, 1879 – 585 p. (Read it for free here).
- Celebridades malditas!: Novela histórica. Proyecto de Rescate Editorial de la Biblioteca Municipal de Guayaquil, 1909 – 141 p. (Read it for free here).
- Haz bien, sin mirar a quien: Novela social. Imp. de el Comercio, 1910 – 91 p. (Read it for free here).
- Poesias Imp. de Juan P. Sanz, 1878 – 146 p. (Read it for free here).
- Estudio sobre el soneto Tipografía Gutenberg. Guayaquil, 1908 – 34 p. (Read it for free here).