Later he worked as a messenger for Anglo Lautaro Nirate Company, until his thirst for adventure led him to spend three years traveling in Chile, Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador and Argentina.
[1] Although his early works consisted of poetry and stories (Poemas y Pomadas Cuentos breves y Cuescos de brevas), it is as a novelist that he has had the greatest success, both critical and popular.
He dreams of having a literary style which blends "the magic of Juan Rulfo, the marvels of Gabriel García Márquez, the playfulness of Cortázar, the refinement of Carlos Fuentes, and the intelligence of Borges."
El arte de la resurrección is a comic love story set in the early 1940s during a strike by saltpetre miners in barren northern Chile.
Many of Hernán Rivera Letelier's books have been translated into foreign languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Polish and Turkish.