Assuming that the “ontological homogeneity” principle is inherent to the literary work and that the fictionalization of literary referents is its logical derivation, I have coined the concept of “pseudo-real referents” and I show how these referents function in two contemporary Chilean novels: Santa María de las flores negras [Holy Mary of the Black Flowers], by Hernán Rivera Letelier, a text that is consistent with an “aesthetics of totality,” and Amuleto [Amulet], by Roberto Bolaño, a work that on some levels displays an “aesthetic of decentralization or instability.”