Juan Rodolfo Wilcock - Early Life

Early Life

Wilcock was born at Buenos Aires.

He studied at the Universidad de Buenos Aires from which he graduated as a Civil Engineer in 1943. That same year he started to work for a railroad company then in expansion in the western parts of Argentina. The experience would be short-lived, as Wilcock resigned a year later. His first known literary work and accomplishment came in 1940 under the title Libro de poemas y canciones ("Book of Poems and Songs") which earned the Martín Fierro, a prize given by the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE). The same work would also win the prestigious Municipal Award of Literature given by the City of Buenos Aires. Soon Wilcock would see himself surrounded by some of the most prominent writers-intellectuals of the time like Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo, and Adolfo Bioy Casares to name just a few of the acquaintances he befriended, but perhaps the most influential. Wilcock would later refer to the three as a constellation and the Trinity, which helped him elevate from what he called a “grey existence”. In 1945 Wilcock undertook the self-publication of two collections of poetry: Ensayos de poesía lírica and Persecución de las musas menores. The following year he would again obtain the award granted by the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE) for his Paseo Sentimental. Also in 1946, Wilcock published his Los hermosos días.