Taratuta and Still Life with Pipe
Two Novellas
20 January 1995
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
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.
Reviews
"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
"Impressive. . . . These short works . . . show the author at his near best, challenging, provoking, forcing reexamination." — James Polk, Washington Post
"In the Spanish-speaking world, [Donoso is] a combination of Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger." — Elena Castedo