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This article examines the intellectual milieu in which Roberto Burgos Cantor emerged as a writer, focusing on his engagement with Manuel Zapata Olivella’s literary journal Letras Nacionales (1965–85). Through explorations of the collaborations between these two writers, and by offering a close reading of the short story “Esta noche de siempre,” the article argues that Burgos Cantor’s relationship with Letras Nacionales was key in his development of an innovative style of urban narrative that offers an alternative notion of heroism, centers marginalized voices, and challenges national myths of racial democracy in Colombia. Paying particular attention to the communicative elements of silence in Burgos Cantor’s poetic prose, the presented approach draws on recent studies of the cultural and intellectual impact of Letras Nacionales and Édouard Glissant’s call for a “right to opacity” as essential to preserving the complexity of marginalized voices.
