Manuel Ascencio Segura and Cordero , was born in Lima on June 23, 1805. His parents were the Huancavelican lieutenant Juan Segura and the Lima lady Manuela Cordero. He was assigned as administrator of the customs of Huacho.
Manuel Ascensio received the rank of cadet at a very young age and fought in Ayacucho against the liberating troops, alongside his father. Following a military career, in 1831 he obtained the rank of captain of the second Zepita battalion, stationed in Jauja. It was probably around that time that Manuel Ascencio Segura, trying his luck in the theater, wrote his first comedy, La Pepa , which was never performed, but in which the despotism of the military was harshly attacked.
When the Peru-Bolivian Confederation was organized, Manuel Ascencio Segura embraced the Peruvian cause personified by the young and audacious General Salaverry. Taken prisoner by the Bolivians in Camaná, he saved his life when the Confederation was defeated by the combined Chilean-Peruvian army. The restorative government of President Gamarra called up Captain Segura again and assigned him to the National Guard. In homage to this body, Manuel Ascencio Segura had a performance in September 1839 of Love and politics , a work of historical type whose text has been lost. At that time, he became a member of the editorial staff of El Comercio and premiered his comedy Sergeant Canuto , satirizing the still dominant militarism in Peru. In 1840 his controversy began with Don Felipe Pardo, author of The mirror of my land , to which Manuel Ascencio Segura responded with Lima against The mirror of my land . From this first confrontation, both exchanged letters without signing.
Literature and Manuel Ascencio Segura
Shortly after, in 1841, Manuel Ascencio Segura founded La Bolsa , a newspaper that he wrote almost entirely, where articles and letters against Marshal Santa Cruz were published. That year two of his comedies were released simultaneously: La saya y el manto and The bad girl , the latter name of a very popular dance, and El Cometa appeared , eventual political newspaper, supported almost exclusively by the pen and ingenuity of Segura.
With Gamarra dead and anarchy unleashed, Manuel Ascencio Segura retired from the army, with the rank of sergeant major. This probably occurred around August 16, 1842. On April 20 of the following year, at the age of thirty-seven, he married Doña Josefa Fernández de Viana, who was twenty-three years old.
On the night of January 24, 1845, Ña Catita premiered. , his most celebrated comedy. Appointed secretary of the government of Piura, he went on to reside in that northern city, where he founded the newspaper El Moscón (1848-1851), in which he published his famous satirical poem La peli-muertada . In December 1854 he premiered the comedy The Spy . The following year he wrote El resignado and he put it back on stage Nobody hits me . On January 24, 1858 A toy premiered . On October 12 of that same year he was declared unemployed with full salary for having served the nation for more than thirty years. He was fifty-three years old. In January 1859, in collaboration with the young Ricardo Palma, Segura presented the sainete El santo de Panchita . Being already, in 1861, substitute deputy for Loreto, he premiered Mishaps of a remitted . In July 1862 he premiered Lances de Amaneaos and in September of that same year The three widows , comedy in three acts. Three years later, on October 18, 1871, he died in Lima .