Richard Morton Koster (1934) is an American novelist best known for the Tinieblas trilogy—The Prince (1972), The Dissertation (1975), Mandragon (1979)—set in an imaginary Central American republic much like Panama, the author's home for many years. He is the author, besides, of two other novels, Carmichael's Dog (1992) and Glass Mountain (2001), and (with Panamanian man of letters Guillermo Sánchez Borbón), of In the Time of the Tyrants (1990), a history of the Torrijos-Noriega dictatorship in Panama.
Koster's approach in the trilogy is post-modern magical realism, reminiscent of Garcia Marquez in its sometimes fantastical content, and of Nabokov in its verbal and structural inventiveness. In The Prince, for example, conflict over an American military base near the capital of Tinieblas causes a "flag plague" in which activists break out in stinging rashes of their national colors, while The Dissertation presents itself as a doctoral thesis with contrapuntal stories in the text and notes.
Each novel focuses on a larger-than-life protagonist around whom the action revolves, as in a concerto for solo instrument and orchestra. The author himself likens the books to the panels of a triptych, "since each of the three is complete in itself and since they need not be considered in the order of their publication." Major characters from one book appear as minor characters in the others, and vice versa. The unifying "character" of all three is Tinieblas itself.
The Tinieblas trilogy may be seen as an imaginative response to the unrest that convulsed Central America during the 1970s and '80s, or as an extended reference to the work of Niccolò Machiavelli. Each protagonist is a political leader, in The Prince an adventurer on the model of Cesare Borgia, in Mandragon a charismatic like Savonarola. For the protagonist of The Dissertation political ambition is a disease, yet he accepts leadership when it is thrust upon him. Throughout the trilogy the wages of power is death, and there are many incidents of grim violence and grotesque humor, often combined. The three books received considerable acclaim, including a National Book Award nomination for The Prince.
Koster was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has degrees from Yale and New York Universities. He taught English at the National University of Panama, and from 1964 to 2001 was a member of the faculty of the Florida State University, serving at its Panama branch. He has lectured in English and Spanish at universities in the United States and Latin America. In 2003 he was a visiting professor at Southern Methodist University.
Koster has had parallel careers in politics and journalism. He was a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1967 to 1996, served on many Democratic panels, and wrote presidential debate copy for Senator John Kerry in 2004. During the 1960s and '70s he reported from Panama for the Copely News Service and Newsweek magazine. He has reported more recently for the New York Times and has contributed prolifically to the Spanish language press in Panama.
More than that of most American writers, Koster’s work is deeply grounded in the western literary canon. Overt references, however, tend to be playful not pedantic. In Carmichael's Dog (1992), which takes place in a parallel universe, characters quote the poet-playwright Robin Speckshaft, whose works include Launcelot and Guinevere, Ornella Whore of Tunis, and Malaspina Duke of Ancona. The latter’s self-consciously gloomy protagonist has his dwarf strangled for making him smile.
Koster went to Panama as a soldier in the late 1950s and has lived there since. His wife, Otilia Tejeira, was a soloist with Panama’s National Ballet and has had a subsequent career as a human rights monitor. They have two children and three grandchildren.