This article examines the importance of the magazine Libre, which brought together an exceptional list of collaborators in Spanish and Latin American literature between 1971 and 1972. In a few years of intense and well-known controversy about the political role of literature, Libre proposed cohesion between intellectuals on both sides of the ocean through a common project to consolidate the new relations established following the discovery in Spain of Latin American literature, mainly from the publication of La Ciudad and dogs in 1963. However, the project did not survive the consequences of the famous ‘Padilla case’, which meant the collapse of the political unity of Spanish-speaking intellectuals.