Jaime Sáenz Guzmán (8 October 1921 – 16 August 1986) was a Bolivian writer, poet, novelist, journalist, essayist, illustrator, dramaturge, and professor, known best for his narrative and poetic works.

His father was Genaro Sáenz Rivero, the lieutenant colonel of the Bolivian Army, and his mother Graciela Guzmán Lazarte.

This trip to Europe greatly affected the direction of his work, as he was strongly influenced by the works of philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer, Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and writers Thomas Mann, William Blake, and Franz Kafka; as for his music tastes, Sáenz enjoyed Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner.

Around then he also published Aniversario de una visión (Anniversary of a Vision) (1960), Visitante profundo (Immanent Visitor) (1964), and the first volume of his magazine Vertical (1965).

In 1970, he earned a professorship in Bolivian Literature with a dissertation on Alcides Arguedas at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) in La Paz.

In 1974, he presented a theatrical play called La noche del viernes (Friday Night) and a libretto for his opera Perdido viajero (Lost Traveler).

Nighttime reunions with Jaime Sáenz were hosted for years, and until the moment of his death they were a space for the marginalized and the rebellious to have rich intellectual exchange.

The famous "Krupp Workshop", the venue where Sáenz received his visitors, was converted into an institution, where the publication of literary magazines, games of dice, music by Anton Bruckner or Simeón Roncal, chats about Milarepa, and lectures on poetry were the permanent foundation.

Perhaps the most appealing detail about him, especially to young people, was the romantic aspect of his lifestyle, reflected in his work schedule and social life: sleep during the day and live at night.

Like he himself reports in his most autobiographical book, La piedra imán (The Lodestone) (1989), visiting the morgue to contemplate the dead was one of the extravagant activities he participated in as a youth.

In 1980, one of his relapses brought him to the brink of death, thus sparking inspiration for La noche (The Night), a collection of poems that can be classified as "frightening" due to its subject matter rooted in his near-death experience.