Prostitution has been a key subject in LatinAmeri can literature, but it seems not to have developed the same way in cronicas. This paper describes the place of prostitution as a topic in Southern Cone cronicas in the twentieth century through a review of the literary and journalistic works of a variety of authors. The paper shows how, in many cases, the same novelists who wrote their fiction presenting the brothel and its characters with a keen eye and in precise detail (such as Edwards Bello in Chile and Arlt in Argentina) did not cover the same terrain in their copious non-fiction. Furthermore, in that context, the study highlights and analyses the literary non-fiction work The Road to Buenos Aires, by Londres, as a forerunner in the region in terms of theme and author's positioning. We suggest that the place of the cronica's authors as character, witness, accuser, and "culprit" turned writers away from addressing in their non-fiction works a world they knew all too well. In light of the development of the Latin American cronica in the second half of the twentieth century, the paper argues that prostitution is both a subject and a lens allowing us to understand the fundamental changes in non-fiction writing in the continent.