José Donoso

Central Diaries. A Season in Hell is a fascinating journey into the intimate and creative life of José Donoso, one of the most relevant storytellers in Hispanic-American literature. In these pages, covering the period from 1966 to 1980, it is possible to access the laboratory where fundamental titles of his work are forged: Hell Has No Limits, A House in the Country, The Garden Next Door, and, particularly, The Obscene Bird of Night, a book that led him to the brink of madness and physically sickened him, while also establishing him as an unavoidable figure in the literary landscape. If in Early Diaries, covering the years 1950 to 1965 and published in 2016, the reader could witness his creative effervescence and the constant search for a style, a voice, a literary identity, in this second volume we see him in full command of his resources. We see an author of absolute radicalism when it comes to experimenting with writing – with the form of what we call a novel – and populating his fiction with desperate, decadent, and grotesque characters, beings that inhabit a world where boundaries become blurred, whether they define genre, genealogy, or class.

Donoso's dedication to literature is total – here are his readings, his essay projects, or his devastating judgments towards his peers – and crystallizes in a moment that is unlikely to be repeated: that of the Latin American boom, with its million-dollar advances and its apoteosic launches, translations, prizes, and, of course, the pettiness and envies on the agenda. The tensions of his profession run parallel to a permanent and stark self-observation, which involves his private and family life: these are the years when – along with María Pilar, his wife – he settles abroad, adopts his daughter Pilar, and begins to navigate as best he can the stormy married life.