Adolfo Hidalgo Nevares, sometimes spelled Nevarez, (Guayaquil, March 18, 1891 – Quito, 1934) was a doctor, writer and poet. Under the pseudonym Máximo de Bretal he wrote articles for El Guante magazine on topics such as politics, literature and poetry. He also wrote for El Telégrafo of Guayaquil and El Universitario of Quito. In 1920 he was appointed Deputy of Guayas. In 1925 he became a professor at the University of Guayaquil’s new Dentistry and Veterinary schools, and in 1926 he was named Minister of Public Education. He led a bohemian life and had an on and off again addiction to morphine which he sometimes used in the company of some of the members of the Decapitated Generation, a group of young Ecuadorian poets who died young by suicide. He too died by suicide in 1934, at the age of 43.
Family
He was born to Adolfo Hidalgo García, a banker from Guayaquil, and María Dolores Nevarez Plaza from Charapotó, Manabí. He had a sister named Leonor Hidalgo. His father’s brother was the poet Federico Marco Hidalgo García.
He married Sara Maria Mejía Burbano on December 27, 1924. They got divorced in 1930. He remarried her in 1932 but again broke up. They had no children.
Education
In 1903-1909 he attended high school at the Vicente Rocafuerte National School. He then went to medical school.
Death
One night in Quito in 1934 he placed a handkerchief on his white shirt so as not to stain it, and then shot himself on the head.