Federico Gamboa

Federico Gamboa Iglesias (1864 to 1939) was a Mexican writer and diplomat, born and died in Mexico City, and counted among the leading Mexican representatives of Naturalism. He entered the Mexican Foreign Affairs Service in 1888 as a second secretary, served in Guatemala and Argentina, and remained ambassador in the Netherlands after Porfirio Diaz fell from power in 1911. In 1913, under the presidency of Victoriano Huerta, he was Secretary of Foreign Affairs for only forty-four days before resigning that post to stand for president as the candidate of the National Catholic Party, with General Eugenio Rascon as his running mate; he lost to Huerta. Under Venustiano Carranza he left Mexico for the United States and then Cuba, returning in 1919. Alongside this public career he wrote novels such as Santa, plays, essays and a long series of published diaries.