Santiago (Chile), 1924 – 1996

By Flávio Aguiar

Parodying social types is commonplace in Latin American literature, which finds original expression in some works. This was the case with this Chilean, a professor and editor of the magazine Ercilla, who made innovative efforts from his first publications (Este domingo, 1966), distancing himself from the dense and violent narrative of writers like Carlos Droguett.

He lived among various cultures, which contributed to the diversification, including formally, of his work, seen, for example, in the erotic narrative La misteriosa desaparición de la marquesita de Loria (1980). In 1996, he published Conjeturas sobre la memoria de mi tribu, a book of family memories in which he explored details of the life of the fiction writer Juan Emar. The short stories, which do not align with any literary school, expose a biting perception of Chilean bourgeois society, with characters who try to rebel against conventions but, unsuccessfully, fall into inertia. Another work: Cuentos (1971).