José Donoso Saw the Future of Latin American Literature

The Latin American Boom of the 1960s and ‘70s is associated with some of contemporary Spanish-language literature’s most towering figures, among them Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez. But of all the giants translated, American readers have largely forgotten the single greatest writer to come from the Boom: Chilean novelist José Donoso.

The Latin American Boom, of course, was somewhat artificially constructed—a marketing term by U.S. publishers to name and corral the Spanish-language arts, for which the ‘60s and ‘70s were especially fecund years. How else could writers as stylistically and geographically diverse as García Márquez, , and fit under the same tent, if not for the efforts of editors and publicists at highly regarded American publishing houses? But soon the Boom became a two-sided effort: The reason you now know and appreciate so much Latin American literature isn’t just thanks to, , and —or such inexhaustible translators as , and , and —and but also the champion of his generation that was José Donoso. In fact, Donoso isn’t just the greatest writer of the Boom—he wrote its biography!