The novel Epifania de una sombra (2000), by Mauricio Wacquez, constitutes a starting point for a new reading of two well-known Chilean intellectuals: BenjaminSubercaseaux and Luis Oyarzun. Just like these latter, Wacquez represents the childhood as a space of existential discovery and possibly, a critical perspective of the family scheme. Similarly to the young characters of Daniel. Nino de lluvia (1938), by Subercaseaux, and La infancia (1940) y Los dias ocultos (1955), by Oyarzun, Santiago, the main character of Epifania, offers a way of reading the formation of masculinity during the first half of the XXth Century in Chile, by proposing subversive aesthetic and gender/sexual imaginations that differ from the normalizing discourses constructed by political and social institutions.