Juan Bosch--novelist, essayist, political leader, and former president of the Dominican Republic--is also one of the most respected short-story writers of Latin America. Bosch is a member of the criollismo movement, which stressed Spanish-American themes and rural life in particular and had its greatest impact in the years following World War I until the late 1940s. Bosch's short stories have appeared in anthologies in several different languages and have influenced authors within and beyond the borders of his own country.

Born in La Vega, Dominican Republic, on 30 July 1909 of a Catalan father and a Puerto Rican mother, Bosch grew up in close contact with the campesinos that frequented his father's small business. The northern Cibao region of his youth was composed of small farms, mostly producing tobacco for export, in which semifeudal relationships predominated between landowners and peasants. This early experience played a fundamental role in his political...