Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, who has enjoyed literary prestige since his early twenties when his first book appeared, is the most prolific contemporary Dominican writer and is often hailed as the most impressive of his country's intellectuals. He was born in the city of Santo Domingo on 13 August 1936 to Francisco Veloz Medina, a self-taught scholar who authored an often-cited history of the Santo Domingo neighborhood of La Misericordia, and Mercédez Maggiolo, the devout daughter of Protestant Christians of Italian emigrant descent. Veloz Maggiolo grew up in an ambience that fostered reading and discussion of both religious and secular texts. The fierce dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, whose total hold of Dominican society began in 1930 and ceased only with his violent death in 1961, brought the young Veloz Maggiolo into contact with social and political imperatives. Overall, his works, despite the stylistic and thematic changes perceptible in...