SOURCE: Herrero-Olaizola, Alejandro. “Consuming Aesthetics: José Donoso in the Field of Latin American Literary Production.” Modern Language Notes 115, no. 2 (March 2000): 323-39.

In the following essay, Herrero-Olaizola uses Donoso's novel El jardín de al lado as a commentary on the cultural production of the “Boom” period, with special attention to the influence of the Seix Barral publishing company.

In spite of the disagreements on how to interpret and contextualize the publishing accomplishments of the “Boom” writers, almost everyone would acknowledge the need to ask how the institutions of literature—editors, literary agents, scholars, readers, publishing houses, authors, etc.—interacted in the production of contemporary Latin American narrative.¹ This essay evaluates the field of cultural production of the “Boom” through the interaction of Latin American writers (Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, José Donoso, Mauricio Wácquez, Jorge Edwards, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, among others) with the Barcelona...