This article offers a characterization of the figure and function of the magazine editor within the framework of Chilean and Latin American criticism of the twentieth century. Through the concepts of gatekeeper, panorama and curatorship, we propose to bring together two modes of agency with respect to literature that are usually understood separately. By focusing on the analysis of two tributes to Chile published by the Costa Rican magazine Repertorio Americano in 1940 and 1941, we delve into the different problems, modes and scales in which Enrique Espinoza (pseud. of Samuel Glusberg) and Joaquín García Monge exercised criticism from their position as magazine editors, therefore configuring themselves as editor-critics.