Is it that ours is a literature of lost novels?, wonders at some point of her brilliant essay the Puerto Rican writer Marta Aponte Alsina, who shared with the attendants to the presentation of the book Narraciones puertorriqueñas, published by Biblioteca Ayacucho, with Marta Aponte Alsina’s contribution as compiler. This sort of baptism of the anticipated publication was attended by Humberto Mata, president of the Biblioteca Ayacucho Foundation, who opened the event with a speech on this book, the 253^rd in the classic collection and the first volume of a series of books that present exponents of the genres of poetry, essay and political thinking, which in Mata’s words, aim at making justice to that “stranger friend”, when it comes to literature, that is Puerto Rico. Marta Aponte Alsina answers her initial question affirming that “every generation seems condemned to recover the remains of a prolonged shipwreck”; an image that suits perfect to describe the whole team working in the edition of these Narraciones puertorriqueñas, since Venezuelans as well as Puerto Ricans joined to rescue from the oblivion, that sort of invisibility, the literary treasure of that little great country which, as affirmed by Aponte Alsina, “should not have a minor, non-substantial or weak literature.” Nevertheless, and unfortunately for the readers hungry for knowing the literary world of this combatant island, Puerto Rico, as many other small countries, has been historically excluded from the huge editorial industry. Therefore, the compiler of Narraciones puertorriqueñas is deeply grateful for the initiative of Biblioteca Ayacucho which, in her opinion, was born with “a vision of tolerance and as an attempt to spread the cultural heritage of Latin America”, to publish this review of Puerto Rican literature, which first volume, presented yesterday, includes works from 47 writers from the period between 1849 and 1975. The chronological election responds, according to Marta Aponte Alcira, to the “scarce availability of works from the 19^th century and the first decades of the 20^th.” Maria Aponte Alsina closed the presentation of Narraciones puertorriqueñas which, from now on, will constitute a lighthouse for all those interested in the literature of the Caribbean island, affirming that “this review, which has already interested some readers (…) serves to make people aware of the difficulties of writing without means, without political freedom, or incentives, with a lot of fragility, without asking sometimes for what we write, or for whom, but with the stubbornness of the wounded animal which fights to survive.”