Over the years, those canonical authors of 20th century Hispanic American literature have settled in the minds of readers: Borges, Carpentier, Fuentes.... But what about the periphery? Authors such as Bombal, Arreola, Pacheco and Benedetti, excluded by Harold Bloom in his Canon, resurface to show how essential it is to read them. These short essays allow us to approach them and their particular mirror in which we observe the American "being" of the last century.