Horacio Quiroga, (born December 31, 1878, Salto, Uruguay—died February 19, 1937, Buenos Aires, Argentina), Uruguayan-born short-story writer whose imaginative portrayal of the struggle of humans and animals to survive in the tropical jungle earned him recognition as a master of the short story. He also excelled in depicting mental illness and hallucinatory states, in stories that anticipate those of later 20th-century masters such as the American writer William Faulkner.