Stuparich was born and raised in the capital Santiago. An alumni at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile, he worked as a philosophy teacher at Santiago University of Technology (now Usach) before the 1973 military coup. At the same time, he was active in the Socialist Party and was therefore forced to put himself in safety at Italy's embassy when the military took over. In the meantime, he wrote the novel "Chile: Comprometerse con una clase", which was published later in exile.