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 bitteily comic meditation on gardens, deceit, and the nature of a writer's muse.

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. Against this backdrop of complex, often conflicting motivations, Donoso weaves a portrait of a society struggling to fashion a daily existence for itself, and of an intelligentsia vainly attempting to salvage the remnants of glory days long gone by. But Curfew is also a story of the tragic love between Judit Torre, an upper-middle-class radical who wants to escape her bitter past; and Manungo Vera, a native son returning after a successful career as a European pop singer. In the zone between documentary-like realism and grotesque absurdity, Jose Donoso evokes the suffocating atmosphere of a country under dictatorship, and its quietly devastating effect on the actions of those who live there.

"In the Spanish-speaking world, [Donoso is] a combination of Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger."—Elena Castedo

These stirking novellas are the witty crystallizations of José Donoso's concerns over a lifetime of writing. In them he poses many of the questions raised by his fellow Latin American writers, Fuentes, García marquez, and Vargas Llosa: What is truth? How does one use history in fiction? How does an artist create? Taratuta is 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. Donoso is the author of the classic novel The Obscene Bird of Night.

"Impressive. . . . These short works . . . show the author at his near best, challenging, provoking, forcing reexamination."—James Polk, Washington Post

"Well-crafted novellas. . . . Donoso reveals his self-assurance as a writer, mischievously inviting the reader to enter into the process of creating fiction."—Publishers Weekly

"Does art imitate life or vice versa? Or is the relationship between art and life subtler and more playful than either of these maxims suggests? This is what José Donoso, one of Chile's leading novelists . . . appears to conclude, offering these two novellas as evidence. . . . Donoso deftly pursues the difference between art and life."—Madeline Kiser, San Francisco Chronicle

"These two engagingly told stories by one of Chile's leading writers focus on odd obsessions and the ironic consequences of creativity. . . . Both offbeat novellas feature well-etched characters and address serious artistic concerns while remmaining fun and surprising."—Timothy Hunter, Cleveland Plain Dealer