José Donoso

Humberto Peñaloza es el secretario personal del aristócrata Jerónimo Azcoitía, quien es padre de un hijo deforme. Jerónimo pone al niño a cargo de Humberto y lo recluye en la Rinconada, un lugar poblado por seres monstruosos donde, supone, su hijo pasará desapercibido. El segundo gran escenario de la novela es la casa de ejercicios espirituales de La Encarnación de la Chumba, propiedad de la familia Azcoitía, habitada por huérfanas y viejas. Compleja, difícil, la novela es una cúspide del realismo mágico latinoamericano.

“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, Cortázar, Borges and Rulfo, Vargas Llosa and García Márquez, and never mind that ‘the old woman plotted everything.’ She and The Obscene Bird of Night are part of our mainstream, after all, Anglo- and Hispano- American alike. The horrible bat-winged head of the beautiful Blessed Inés pursues us all.” —Robert Coover, The New York Times

“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.

“The story line is like a great puzzle invested with a vibrant, almost tangible reality.” —The New York Times
“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 Yorke

“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