José Donoso

Curfew takes place during one twenty-four hour period in January 1985. Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Prize-winning poet, has just passed away, and various factions are rallying to turn the event to their advantage: for Pinochet's junta, it represents a chance to assert political authority, while for the intellectuals who had basked in the Nerudas' light, it is an opportunity to grab the spoils of the estate.

"Novela póstuma que el autor terminó de escribir poco antes de su fallecimiento. En apretada síntesis reaparecen los motivos más característicos que recorren como obsesiones permanentes toda su narrativa anterior, para configurar una vez más el mundo de postrimerías típicamente donosiano que se inicia en Coronación (1957), su primera novela y que queda definitivamente clausurado en ésta"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

A Chilean writer named Julio and his wife, Gloria, are at a low point in their lives. Constantly bickering, the pair are beset by worries about money, their writing, and their son (who may or may not be plying the oldest profession in Marrakesh). When Julio's boyhood best friend, now a famous artist, lends the couple his luxurious Madrid apartment for the summer, it is an escape for both - but in particular for Julio, who fantasizes about the garden next door and the erotic life of the lovely young aristocratic woman who inhabits it. But Julio's life - and career - unravel In Madrid: he is rebuffed by a famous literary agent, Nuria Monclus, who detests him and his novel; his son's friend from Marrakesh moves in and causes havoc; and Gloria begins to drink. In the face of pitiless adversity, Julio's talent inexorably begins to fade. The garden next door, however, is also Gloria, who has been doing some creating of her own. It is this twist that transforms Donoso's brilliant satire of the writer's life into something even greater: a carefully crafted and bitterly comic meditation on gardens, deceit, and the nature of a writer's muse.

Chilean novelist depicts the physical and moral sordidness of the modern world.

'Taratuta' a mystery story in which a writer tries to track a slippery Russian revolutionary in history and in life. -- 'Still Life with Pipe' shows the comeuppance of an ambitious man when he meets true art and can't escape its grasp.

219 p. ; 21 cm

Page 76-77 are missing from the online edition of this book.

Una métafora implacable de las relaciones conflictivas que los intelectuales latinoamericanos mantienen con la cultura norteamericana.

Im Landhaus einer steinreichen Familie revoltieren Kinder und Eingeborene gegen die strenge Herrschaft. Eine Mischung aus Illusion und Ironie, in der die Dienerschaft die Rolle des Militärs in Chile spielt.