Jose Donoso

José Donoso Yáñez
Born
October 5, 1924 Santiago, Chile
Died
December 1996 Santiago, Chile

José Donoso Yáñez (October 5, 1924 - December 1996) was a prominent Chilean novelist, short story writer and poet. Writing came naturally to Donoso since he believed that "Walking into a novel is like walking into my house. I feel at ease there." Between 1967 and 1981, he lived in Spain where he wrote some of the novels that consolidated the importance of his role as a central figure of Latin America's literary boom. Among Donoso's best known works are Coronación, El Lugar Sin Límites, El Obsceno Pájaro de la Noche, and his final work El Mocho which he didn't live to see published.

Early Life and Education

José Donoso was born in Santiago, Chile on October 4, 1924 to a family belonging to the high end of the country's bourgeoisie. His father, also José Donoso, was a doctor with a profound passion for literature and in the biographies of history's great musicians. Socially, more so than professionally, doctor Donoso was known as a brilliant man, characterized by his ample knowledge of culture, his sympathetic nature, and his passion for horse races. The author's mother belonged to a large and distinguished family who owned one of Chile's most important newspapers of the time La Nación. Among her family members, Eleodoro Yáñez was the most notorious since she was an important figure in Chile's political and cultural life.

In 1931, the year in which his brother Pablo was born, Donoso initiated his formal training in English and in the following year was enrolled in the Grange School. At that time, the Grange School was most elitist private college in Chile. Due to his unfathomable interest in literature, Donoso decided to enroll in Chile's Instituto Pedagógico de la Universidad de Chile to pursue further studies in the English language and literature. With the help of grants provided by the Doherty Foundation, Donoso was able to continue his studies at Princeton University to consolidate his knowledge of the English language. At Princeton University, Donoso studied under the instruction of Lawrence Thompson, R.P. Blackmur, Arthur Szathmary, Robert Fitzgerald, and Allen Tate. It was during his university years that Donoso discovered that his greatest passion in life was writing and that literature was to become an integral part of his lifestyle.

Donoso's Creative Process

Language and Space

José Donoso's use of language and space in his works can be viewed as a process of creating masks. This could be explained as a factor resulting from having lived in Spain for over a decade. Donoso gave his insight on this subject in an interview he had with Marie-Lise Gazarian in the Winthrop Symposium on Major Modern Writers in 1981. As he explained it, "What Spain did was to superimpose a Spanish mask on my Chilean mask, a mask of Spanish language onto my mask of Chilean Spanish...I had to make a choice between the Spanish mask and the Chilean mask continually. And that became more and more difficult as time went by". In Tres Novelitas Burguesas for example, neither the space or setting are Chilean. The space of this novel is Spanish but the language of the novel was is not Spanish. This demonstrates how Donoso was able to assume a space as a mask but not the language as a mask of his Chilean background.

El Mocho - Donoso's Last Novel

El Mocho, the last novel that Donoso submitted to his editors, has its origin in a trip he made to the mining zone of Lota in Chile in the early 1980's. The creation of this novel was not consistent but carried out for several years until Donoso gave the book its conclusion in 1996 when his health did not allow him to continue his work. Among his peers there was a notion that the only thing that kept Donoso alive was the will and determination he had to finish El Mocho. As described by the editor of the novel, Marcelo Maturana, "Donoso escribe y a veces, al escribir, está preguntándose qué, cómo y por qué escribe". By this, the editor was referring to how Donoso utilized the process of writing this novel to profoundly reflect on what, how and why he took up writing.

Some of the central features of El Mocho include: streams of communication, depictions of the aristocracy, social marginality, self identification and social assimilation. A very important aspect of El Mocho is the compulsive manner in which some of the protagonists seek their genealogical origins because it is an essential factor in determining their identity. Apart from all this, the society depicted in the novel undergoes political repression that limits the free will of the citizens.

Later Years

Upon his return to Chile from Spain in 1981, Donoso directed a literary workshop that played an important role in the creation of a nueva narrativa chilena ( a new Chilean narrative).

• Distinctions
  • Premio Nacional de Literatura en Chile (National Prize for Literature in Chile)
  • Premio de la Crítica en España (Prize of Critiques in Spain)
  • Premio Mondello en Italia (Mondello Prize in Italy)
  • Premio Roger Caillois en Francia (Roger Caillois in France)
  • Gran Cruz del Mérito Civil de 1995 (Great Cross of Civil Merit in 1995)

José Donoso died in Santiago, Chile, on December 1996.

Bibliography

Select titles of Jose Donoso's works.

• The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History (1977) ISBN 0231041640
• Charleston & Other Stories (1977) ISBN 0879231971, ISBN 9780879231972
• Coronación (1968) ISBN 8432213136 ISBN 9788432213137
• Curfew: A Novel (1988) ISBN 155584166X, ISBN 9781555841669
• Dónde Van a Morir Los Elefantes (1995) ISBN 8420481998, ISBN 9788420481999
• The Garden Next Door (1992) ISBN 0802112382, ISBN 9780802112385
  • El Jardín de al Lado (1981) ISBN 8432203874, ISBN 9788432203879
• A House in the Country: A Novel (1984) ISBN 0394509498, ISBN 9780394509495
• El Lugar Sin Límites (1955) ISBN 9681902645, ISBN 9789681902643
• El Mocho (1997) ISBN 9562390276, ISBN 9789562390279
• The Obscene Bird of Night (1973) ISBN 039446916X, ISBN 9780394469164
  • El Obsceno Pajaro de la Noche (1970) OCLC 283929
• Taratuta; and, Still Life with Pipe: two Novellas (1993) ISBN 0393034364, ISBN 9780393034363

See Also

• Symbolism
• Existentialism
• Surrealism

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Adelstein, Miriam. Studies on the Works of José Donoso: An Anthology of Critical Essays. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990. ISBN 0889463905
• Castillo-Feliú, Guillermo I. The Creative Process in the Works of José Donoso. Rock Hill: Winthrop College, 1982. OCLC 9539104
• Donoso, José. El Mocho. Chile: Punto de Lectura, 2004. ISBN 9562393216
• Quinteros, Isis. José Donoso: Una Insurreción Contra la Realidad. Madrid: Hispanova, 1978. ISBN 8471332655
• Sarrochi, Augusto C. El Simbolismo en la Obra de José Donoso. Chile: Editorial La Noria, 1992. OCLC 26843677

External Links

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