EDWARDS, JORGE

born July 29, 1931, Santiago, Chile Chilean writer, literary critic, and diplomat who gained notoriety with the publication of Persona non grata (1973), a memoir of his experiences as the Chilean ambassador to Cuba in the early 1970s. Critical of the revolutionary socialist regime of Cuba's Fidel Castro, it created controversy among Latin-American writers. After receiving a law degree at the University of Chile in 1958, Edwards began his career as a diplomat and continued his education at Princeton University. His collections of short fiction, which include El patio (1952; The Backyard), Gente de la ciudad (1961; City People), Las mscaras (1967; The Masks), and Temas y variaciones (1969; Themes and Variations), departed from prevailing Chilean literature in that the stories deal not with rural life but with the anguish of middle-class bureaucrats. Edwards's novels about Chile include El peso de la noche (1965; Night's Burden), about the decay of the middle-class family; Los convidados de piedra (1978; The Stone Guests), a story set during the 1973 military coup; El museo de cera (1981; Wax Museum), a political allegory; La mujer imaginaria (1985; The Imaginary Woman), about the liberation of an upper-class, middle-aged female artist; and El anfitrin (1987; The Host), a modern retelling of the Faust story. His later works include Adis, poeta (1990; Good-bye, Poet), a study of Pablo Neruda, and El whisky de los poetas (1994; The Whiskey of the Poets).