Arturo is a Chilean exile and the pragmatic, sometimes ruthless co-founder of the visceral realist movement. Driven by intense restlessness, he travels across continents after leaving Mexico City, taking odd jobs and engaging in various physical and literary conflicts. He demands absolute loyalty from his followers and treats poetry as a totalizing way of life.

Ulises is the spiritual core of the visceral realists. He is an introverted poet who views literature as an all-encompassing existence, funding the group's early literary magazine by selling marijuana. His travels take him through Europe and the Middle East, where he frequently experiences extreme poverty and emotional fragility.

Juan is a 17-year-old orphaned law student who quickly abandons his formal education to join the visceral realists. Through his detailed diary entries, he documents his rapid immersion into a bohemian lifestyle filled with poetry, poverty, and danger. He transitions from an academic understanding of poetry to living it experientially.

Cesárea is an obscure 1920s avant-garde poet who vanished into the Sonora desert decades earlier. She published only one known visual poem, titled *Sión*, and serves as the mythic foundational figure for the modern visceral realist movement. Her absence allows the young poets to project their own ideals onto her legacy.

Lupe is a teenage sex worker seeking to escape her violent circumstances and enroll in dance classes. Her desperate situation catalyzes the visceral realists' sudden flight from Mexico City into the Sonora desert, directly exposing their abstract literary ideals to brutal physical danger.

María is a poet, painter, and pragmatic member of the visceral realist inner circle. She provides a critical counterpoint to the romantic idealism of her male peers and serves as García Madero's initial entry into the bohemian world. She is deeply aware of the complex histories of the group's members.

Alberto is Lupe's possessive and violent pimp. He drives a yellow Camaro and relentlessly stalks the Font family home when they attempt to shelter Lupe. He embodies the brutal reality that actively threatens the poets' abstract world.

Angélica is the younger sister of María Font and the winner of the prestigious Laura Damián poetry prize. Despite her genuine literary talent, she frequently finds herself the object of intense male attention and competition within the bohemian circle.

Joaquín is an architect and the father of María and Angélica. He initially supports the visceral realists by designing their magazine layout, but his mental health grows increasingly erratic. His attempts to protect vulnerable individuals lead to chaotic consequences for his family.

Amadeo is an aging writer who earns his living as a public scribe at Plaza Santo Domingo. As the last living member of the original 1920s visceral realist movement, he acts as the crucial link between the young poets and their elusive idol, sharing his memories over bottles of mezcal.

Julio is a university poetry instructor whose authority is openly challenged by García Madero, Belano, and Lima. He represents the established, conventional literary system that the visceral realists aim to destroy.

Rosario is a cheerful waitress who presses García Madero to write poetry for her. She provides him with a place to live during his early days of drifting with the visceral realists.

Rafael is a visceral realist poet who attempts to catalog the group's ongoing experimental work. He relies heavily on his American partner for financial support while trying to maintain his bohemian identity.

Pancho is a visceral realist poet who pursues Angélica Font with clumsy persistence. He provides García Madero with important background information about the group's illicit funding.

Ernesto is a gay poet who creates an elaborate, comedic taxonomy classifying all poetry into provocative sexual categories. He is deeply critical of the literary establishment and offers a harsh assessment of Cesárea Tinajero.

Auxilio is a Uruguayan poet who refers to herself as the "mother of Mexican poetry." She famously survived a university military occupation by hiding in a bathroom stall for over a week, relying only on tap water.

Luscious Skin is a peripheral visceral realist poet with a penchant for dramatic behavior and complicated sexual entanglements. He maintains a deep respect for Belano despite Belano's open hostility toward him.

Luis is a literary journalist who observes the visceral realists with a mixture of fascination and disdain. He attempts to use his professional influence to secure publication for a poet he is secretly involved with.

Jacinto is a visceral realist poet who displays great initial loyalty to Lima and Belano. He later refuses inclusion in a prominent poetry anthology out of solidarity with the group's absent founders.

Xóchitl is a poet who struggles to publish her work due to her visceral realist associations. She takes practical jobs to survive and navigates complicated relationships within the publishing industry to support her peers.

Felipe is a Chilean friend of Belano who eventually withdraws from visceral realism. He provides support to Belano during their time in Barcelona and offers cynical reflections on the trajectory of writers' lives.

Simone is a French anthropology student who hosts both Belano and Lima during their respective times in Paris. She notes the stark differences between the two men's temperaments.

Norman is a Mexican-Jewish student studying in Israel who reluctantly hosts Ulises Lima. He becomes increasingly troubled by Lima's emotional fragility and frequent nighttime crying.

Heimito is an Austrian wanderer prone to paranoia who bonds with Lima in jail. He later travels with Lima to Vienna, where they engage in a violent street brawl.

Edith is a philosophy student and Trotskyite militant who reconnects with Belano in Barcelona. She becomes his closest confidante during a period of severe mental fragility, before returning to North America.

Xosé is a Galician lawyer and poetry magazine editor who develops a bitter professional jealousy toward Belano. He uses his influence to marginalize the poet after discovering Belano is involved with his daughter.

Iñaki is a literary critic who finds himself challenged to an absurd sword duel by Belano on a nudist beach in Spain. He approaches the fight as a bizarre farce that turns surprisingly serious.

Jacobo is an Argentinian photojournalist who crosses paths with Belano in various African war zones. He observes the poet's deteriorating physical and emotional state with deep concern.

Flora is a retired schoolteacher in Sonora who provides crucial details about Cesárea Tinajero's solitary life and her obsession with writing in black notebooks.

Laura is a young poet whose tragic death before the age of 20 profoundly affected Ulises Lima. Her passing inspired an annual poetry prize that funds the literary ambitions of the younger generation.