Julio Cortázar was one of the best-known writers of the Latin American boom in the nineteen sixties—along with García Márquez, Carlos  Fuentes, and Vargas Llosa. He was born in Brussels of Argentine parents, and he grew up in Argentina. In his thirties, Cortázar moved to Paris because he did not agree with the government of Juan Domingo Perón, and that is where he began his life as a writer. Cortázar is undoubtedly one of the masters of the magic realism short story; and he had a very intense life, not only as a writer but also as a person committed to socialist ideology and similar movements through Latin America (particularly Cuba and Nicaragua). Unfortunately Herráez does not provide a book that reflects the importance of Córtazar in Latin American Literature. His biography is difficult to follow because he moves back and forth between actual events, commentaries on Córtazar’s work, and Córtazar’s works themselves. Because Herráez does not maintain a chronology of events, readers must bring a strong sense of organization to this otherwise useful work in order to understand the evolution of Córtazar as a writer and to appreciate how his life influenced his writing. Recommended for Public Libraries