Skip to content
Latin American Literature Today Logo big width
whiting literary magazine prize winner
worldliteraturetoday.org 95 year logo
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Book Reviews
    • Back Issues
    • Author Index
    • Translator Index
  • Publish in LALT
    • Publication Guidelines
    • Guidelines for Translators
  • LALT and WLT
    • Get Involved
    • Student Opportunities
  • Get to know us
    • About
    • LALT Team
    • Mission
    • Editorial Board
  • LALT Blog
  • Our Donors
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Book Reviews
    • Back Issues
    • Author Index
    • Translator Index
  • Publish in LALT
    • Publication Guidelines
    • Guidelines for Translators
  • LALT and WLT
    • Get Involved
    • Student Opportunities
  • Get to know us
    • About
    • LALT Team
    • Mission
    • Editorial Board
  • LALT Blog
  • Our Donors
  • menu
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • English
  • Español
  • menu
Subscribe
  • English
  • Español
LALT-Iso_1
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Book Reviews
    • Back Issues
    • Author Index
    • Translator Index
  • Publish in LALT
    • Publication Guidelines
    • Guidelines for Translators
  • LALT and WLT
    • Get Involved
    • Student Opportunities
  • Get to know us
    • About
    • LALT Team
    • Mission
    • Editorial Board
  • LALT Blog
  • Our Donors
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Book Reviews
    • Back Issues
    • Author Index
    • Translator Index
  • Publish in LALT
    • Publication Guidelines
    • Guidelines for Translators
  • LALT and WLT
    • Get Involved
    • Student Opportunities
  • Get to know us
    • About
    • LALT Team
    • Mission
    • Editorial Board
  • LALT Blog
  • Our Donors
  • menu
  • English
  • Español

Latin American Literature

Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
ISSUE

33

MARCH
2025
In our thirty-third issue, we highlight two figures whose unique perspectives on the world of literature and the writer’s vocation deserve our attention: Gabriel Zaid of Mexico and José Donoso of Chile. Thanks to critic Christopher Domínguez Michael and our generous friends at Letras Libres, we share a cover dossier dedicated to Zaid—a “social engineer” as much as a literary critic, essayist, and poet—with a selection of his unmistakable texts from said magazine, available in English for the first time. Thanks to journalist and scholar Cecilia García-Huidobro, we also share an exclusive excerpt from Donoso’s as-yet unpublished diaries, likewise available for the first time in English, along with critical reflections on this seminal author’s work by Nicolás Bernales and Arturo Fontaine. This new issue also features writing in translation by Salvador Elizondo and José Lezama Lima, poetry in Quechua by Gloria Cáceres Vargas, previews of forthcoming books in translation from Gastón Fernández, Andrés Felipe Solano, and Carmen Boullosa, and much more.
SEE THE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS
Facebook Twitter Instagram

FEATURED AUTHOR

Gabriel Zaid

DONATIONS

Curriculum vitae

By Gabriel Zaid

“When I started reading, life (what people say life is) started seeming to me a series of interruptions,” Zaid writes. But sometimes, he admits in this text that is something like a self-portrait, interruption also takes the shape of joy.

Gabriel Zaid: Social Engineer

BY Enrique Krauze & José María Lassalle

Gabriel Zaid has been a creative writer, but also a critic. He has analyzed culture and the conditions of its production.

Gabriel Zaid: Catholic and Modern

BY Christopher Domínguez Michael

In Zaid’s manner of thinking—as in any complex manner of thinking, and especially in one that aspires to simplicity—there is a drama without a dramatic solution.

Intellectuals

BY Gabriel Zaid

The concept of the intellectual, like that of the intelligentsia, appeared in the late nineteenth century in Catholic societies that were late to modernization: France and Poland.

Exotic Quotations

BY Gabriel Zaid

Latin American academics devotedly quote the most obscure of European and North American professors, turning a blind eye to their Latin American colleagues, not to mention mere writers.

Dossier: José Donoso

Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

 Photo: …

Pepe Donoso, or the Attempt to Steal the Fire of Creativity from the Gods

By Cecilia García-Huidobro

Excerpts from the Unpublished Diaries

By José Donoso

José Donoso: Biography of the Pájaro

By Arturo Fontaine

All the Lives of José Donoso

By Nicolás Bernales

Second Annual LALT Literary Essay Contest

WINNING ESSAY: Imperceptible Anatomies

By Guillermo Fajardo

“Imperceptible Anatomies,” by Mexican writer and academic Guillermo Jesús Fajardo Sotelo, is an essay that, from the trigger of a genetic condition, elaborates a penetrating discourse on personal health, the dimensions of  an exceedingly rare pathology, and its links to literary creativity. This is an essay that shows extraordinary balance between the confessional, intellectual inquiry, the clinical aspect, and literary reference points. It likewise represents a minor epic on life and the questions surrounding the demands of the human body—a body, as Fajardo Sotelo calls it himself, that is “anatomically disobedient.”

No one was sure how to act around Pablo Quiñonez, how to look at him, what to say (not that there was anything that could be said, it was horrible what was happening, simple as that). His teachers took pains to pat his head or lay a hand on his shoulder. The gym teacher gave him a big hug. His classmates tried to be close, they sat next to him or hovered nearby, in case he needed anything. The director called him to her office; once there, between the colored plate of San Martín and the wooden crucifix, she offered him some water and talked to him about God.
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Essays

Conjunctions & Disjunctions: Octavio Paz and Severo Sarduy

By Indranil Chakravarty

From This Other Side

By Rodrigo Mariño López

The Melancholy Reader: Ricardo Forster and La biblioteca infinita: Leer y desleer a Borges

By Ismael Gavilán

SEE MORE

interviews

Poetry as Vital Need and Natural Language: An Interview with Piedad Bonnett on Los privilegios del olvido

By Juan Camilo Rincón

“For Borges, the adventure is always literary”: A Conversation with Ricardo Forster

By Marcelo Rioseco

"I wanted an almost agonizing character": A Conversation with Brenda Lozano

By Adriana Pacheco

SEE MORE

World Literature from WLT

Making Things Brighter for the Next Generation: A Conversation with Oscar Hokeah

By Kyrié Eleison Owen

In Search of Ambivalent Horror: Mariana Enriquez on Rediscovering the Horrific in Everyday Injustices

By Agnethe Brounbjerg Bennedsgaard

SEE MORE

New Releases

Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Domestic Life is saturated with a theme I find eminently relatable, as I think many readers will agree: the imposter syndrome that plagues all of us who dedicate ourselves to creative endeavors. Here, Marcelo’s stand-in (Mauricio) is literally haunted by the ghost of Roberto Bolaño, who pops in every so often from the romantic deserts of poetic oblivion to poke fun at him for having fish filets for dinner and remind him of the wild, bohemian essence of pure literary impulse he is allowing to shrivel and wane as he lives the comfortable, (it must be said) domestic life of a poet-cum-professor at a U.S. university. After seven poetry books (and this one’s being recognized as the best of its pub year), Marcelo still cannot help but wonder: Do I write poems, or am I a poet? Does the former necessarily mean the latter? I can’t pretend to offer any answers here; I have translated a great deal over the past ten years, but I still find myself doubting whether or not I am a translator in much the same way. To use an appropriately homey idiom, I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I invite anyone who has read this far to turn to the poems and decide for themselves.

Arthur Malcolm Dixon

Domestic Life is saturated with a theme I find eminently relatable, as I think many readers will agree: the imposter syndrome that plagues all of us who dedicate ourselves to creative endeavors. Here, Marcelo’s stand-in (Mauricio) is literally haunted by the ghost of Roberto Bolaño, who pops in every so often from the romantic deserts of poetic oblivion to poke fun at him for having fish filets for dinner and remind him of the wild, bohemian essence of pure literary impulse he is allowing to shrivel and wane as he lives the comfortable, (it must be said) domestic life of a poet-cum-professor at a U.S. university. After seven poetry books (and this one’s being recognized as the best of its pub year), Marcelo still cannot help but wonder: Do I write poems, or am I a poet? Does the former necessarily mean the latter? I can’t pretend to offer any answers here; I have translated a great deal over the past ten years, but I still find myself doubting whether or not I am a translator in much the same way. To use an appropriately homey idiom, I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I invite anyone who has read this far to turn to the poems and decide for themselves.

Arthur Malcolm Dixon

fiction

The Wilkinson’s

By Esther Cross

The Warrior

By Ednodio Quintero

Johnny’s Confession

By Carlos María Domínguez

SEE MORE

Indigenous Literature

Two Poems in Quechua

By Gloria Cáceres Vargas

I implore the stars
to illuminate
mistaken minds
and guide us
down the blissful road of love.
I appeal to all the winds
to bring us peace
and eradicate evil.

Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
SEE MORE

LALT CLASSICS

An Excerpt from Elsinore: a notebook

By Salvador Elizondo

Runaways

By José Lezama Lima

SEE MORE

BOOK REVIEWS

Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

RESEÑA FINALISTA
La vorágine: una edición cosmográfica de José Eustasio Rivera (edición de Erna Von der Walde y Margarita Serje)

By Andrea Padilla López
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

WINNING REVIEW
La traducción del mundo: Las conferencias Weidenfeld by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

By Hensli Rahn Solórzano
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

RESEÑA FINALISTA
No soy un robot de Juan Villoro

By Abraham Villa Figueroa
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Textos recuperados de Teresa de la Parra

By Miguel Gomes
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Propétides de Micaela Paredes Barraza

By Benjamín Carrasco Bravo
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Una bella noche para bailar rock. Antología poética de Cristian Cruz

By Ismael Gavilán
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

RESEÑA FINALISTA
La vorágine: una edición cosmográfica de José Eustasio Rivera (edición de Erna Von der Walde y Margarita Serje)

By Andrea Padilla López
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

WINNING REVIEW
La traducción del mundo: Las conferencias Weidenfeld by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

By Hensli Rahn Solórzano
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

RESEÑA FINALISTA
No soy un robot de Juan Villoro

By Abraham Villa Figueroa
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Textos recuperados de Teresa de la Parra

By Miguel Gomes
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Propétides de Micaela Paredes Barraza

By Benjamín Carrasco Bravo
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today

Una bella noche para bailar rock. Antología poética de Cristian Cruz

By Ismael Gavilán
SEE MORE

poetry

Last But Not Definitive Return to Eden

By Sonia Manzano Vela

“I am from here” and other poems

By Manuel Iris

“In Rome” and other poems

By Alonso Ruiz Rosas

SEE MORE

Translation Previews and New Releases

Apparent Breviary, translated by KM Cascia

By Gastón Fernández Carrera

Gloria: A Novel, translated by Will Vanderhyden

By Andrés Felipe Solano

Texas: The Great Theft, translated by Samantha Schnee

By Carmen Boullosa

SEE MORE

On Translation

The Translation of the Poem

By Diana Bellessi

Seeking Publisher: The Spanish Department, translated by Emily Hunsberger

By Antonio Díaz Oliva

SEE MORE

Back Issues

SEE MORE
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Latin American Literature Latin American Literature Today
Footer Logo

University of Oklahoma
780 Van Vleet Oval
Kaufman Hall, Room 105
Norman, OK 73019-4037

  • Accessibility
  • Sustainability
  • HIPAA
  • OU Job Search
  • Policies
  • Legal Notices
  • Copyright
  • Resources & Offices
Updated 06/27/2024 12:00:00
Facebook-f X-twitter Instagram Envelope
Latin American Literature Today Logo big width
MAGAZINE

Current Issue

Book Reviews

Back Issues

Author Index

Translator Index

PUBLISH IN LALT

Publication Guidelines

Guidelines for Translators

LALT AND WLT

Get Involved

Student Opportunities

GET TO KNOW US

About LALT

LALT Team

Mission

Editorial Board

LALT BLOG
OUR DONORS
Subscribe
  • email
LALT Logo SVG white letters mustard background

Subscriptions

Subscribe to our mailing list.