Search results for "Jose Donoso"

The five outstanding authors in this anthology have created remarkably distinctive worlds of their own, worlds that are well reflected in the stories included here. The stories representing each author might be said to function like a mobile: considered separately, they are unique and interesting pieces of art, while together they form a recognizable pattern and give an impression of the author's imaginative world. The anthology as a whole then becomes a collection of such literary mobiles, a vivid exhibition that testifies to the high level of brilliance achieved by contemporary Spanish-American fiction.

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In this book, José Donoso unveils the false appearances, sordidness, violence and misery that give life to a sub world. The story takes place in a brothel owned by "la Japonesita" (the little Japanese girl) and revolves around the character of Manuela, an ambiguous yet brilliant character, a melting pot of passions who serves to reveal a dual morality and to question masculinity and its values. Description in Spanish: Un mundo que es el infierno, donde se ponen al descubierto las falsas apariencias, la sordidez, la violencia y la miseria que lo agobia. Todo sucede alrededor del burdel de la Japonesita. Y de la Manuela, ese ambiguo y genial personaje, crisol de las pasiones y revelador de una falsa moral; cuestionador de la masculinidad y sus valores.

A Chilean writer named Julio and his wife Gloria are beset by worries, constantly bickering about money, their writing, and their son (who may or may not be plying the oldest trade 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 â€" in particular for Julio, who fantasizes about the garden next door and the erotic life of the lovely young aristocrat who inhabits it. But Julio's life and career unravel in Madrid: he is rebuffed by a famous literary agent, 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. With The Garden Next Door, Jose Donoso has rendered a carefully crafted and bitterly comic meditation on gardens, deceit, and the nature of a writer's muse.