Donoso, José – El jardín de al lado (1996)

Synopsis

Published for the first time when José Donoso began his final return to Chile, “El jardín de al lado” is a novel about failure, but also, in some way, about salvation. Julio Méndez, a Chilean novelist already in his fifties, exiled in Spain and obsessed by a definitive success that never came, is torn between his anxiety and his intuitions about his own inevitable mediocrity, tormented by the enigmatic figures of Núria Monclús, the almighty literary agent, and the maximum star of the boom, Marcelo Chiriboga. Torn and tragicomic, everyday and pathetic, “El jardín de al lado” explores the labyrinths of inner marginality, beyond forced or voluntary exile, physical misery or the ambiguities of desire. To give final meaning to this "season in hell", Donoso will have to put into play his usual mechanisms of optical illusion, where things are not what they seem and, at the same time, they are irremediably so.

(SOURCE: Penguin Libros)

Interview: “Donoso: 'El jardín de al lado' es la novela más realista que he escrito”. "El País", 10/06/1981.

Article: Rojo, Grínor. “Donoso conversa con Donoso sobre la posibilidad de escribir la ‘gran novela del golpe’: 'El jardín de al lado'”. "Revista chilena de literatura", 83, 04/2013, 113-135.