One of the first Latin American writers to reject the city for the frontier, novelist, storyteller, and poet Horacio Quiroga (1878–1937) spent the prime of life in his self-built house overlooking the Paraná just southwest of downtown San Ignacio.

While he made writing his career, Quiroga also worked as a cotton farmer and charcoal maker. He took notable photographs of San Ignacio’s Jesuit ruins, incorporating his outside interests into his writing.

His life plagued by violence—Quiroga accidentally shot a youthful friend to death, and his stepfather and first wife both committed suicide—the writer lived here from 1910 to 1917, and again from 1931 until his own cyanide-induced death.

The home is now a museum with 1930s furniture, photographs of his life, and personal belongings. This was not Quiroga’s first house; a replica of that, built for director Nemesio Juárez’s film Historias de Amor, de Locura y de Muerte (Stories of Love, Madness and Death, 1996), stands nearby.

The grounds of Quiroga’s house (Avenida Quiroga s/n, US$0.50) are open 7 a.m.– dusk daily.