José Donoso

This haunting jungle of a novel has been hailed as "a masterpiece" by Luis Bunuel and "one of the great novels not only of Spanish America, but of our time" by Carlos Fuentes. The story of the last member of the aristocratic Azcoitia family, a monstrous mutation protected from the knowledge of his deformity by being surrounded with other freaks as companions, The Obscene Bird of Night is a triumph of imaginative, visionary writing. Its luxuriance, fecundity, horror, and energy will not soon fade from the reader's mind. (Verba Mundi)

"It would be a crass understatement to say that this book is a challenging read; it's totally and unapologetically psychotic. It's also insanely gothic, brilliantly engaging, exquisitely written, filthy, sick, terrifying, supremely perplexing, and somehow connives to make the brave reader feel like a tiny, sleeping gnat being sucked down a fabulously kaleidoscopic dream plughole."—Nicola Barker

"Yes, a miracle, a climactic act of magic for a book that is itself both Miracle and Monster, like the best of this century’s American fiction. I have no idea what fate awaits it, but it certainly deserves to take its place alongside the major works of Asturias and Fuentes, Cortazar, Burges and Rulfo, Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez."—Robert Coover, The New York Times Book Review

"The story is like a great puzzle . . . invested with a vibrant, almost tangible reality."—The New York Times

"Although many of the other “boom” writers may have received more attention—especially Fuentes and Vargas Llosa—Donoso and his masterpiece may be the most lasting, visionary, strangest of the books from this time period. Seriously, it’s a novel about the last member of an aristocratic family, a monstrous mutant, who is surrounded by other freaks so as to not feel out of place."—Publishers Weekly

"Donoso, as I have long believed, belongs to that small company of storytellers who write not for a region but for the entire world: a gigantic masterpiece."—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"Donoso must be counted as one of the spinal writers of the extraordi- nary boom in Latin American fiction which spread through the read- ing world from the midsixties on."—Alastair Reed, The New Yorker

"José Donoso is my favorite author of the Latin American boom."—Fernanda Melchor

"To say he’s the best Chilean novelist of the century is to insult him. I don’t think Donoso had such paltry ambitions."—Roberto Bolaño