Benito Lynch was born on July 25, 1885, in Buenos Aires. His father was Irish, and his mother was a Uruguayan of French descent. When Benito was two years old, his parents left the city for the estancia "El Deseado" in the La Plata region. There he came to identify closely with the area which later was to provide the setting for his rural novels. At the age of ten, Benito moved to La Plata, where his father became a legislator and community leader. In the city young Lynch experienced difficulty in accepting the disciplines of study.