These striking 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
.