Enjoying the Culture 179Novelists
Jorge Edwards and José Donoso are members of the Latin
American ‘Boom’ (along with Peruvian, Mario Vargas Llosa
and Colombian, Gabriel García Márquez). The Boom was a
period from the 1960s through the 1980s when a number
of Latin American authors wrote internationally acclaimed
books. Donoso (1924–1996) was a novelist and short story
writer. He often used black humour to tell his stories. Some
of his best works are The Garden Next Door, Coronation, The
Obscene Bird of Night and Curfew.
Jorge Edwards has been a lawyer and foreign service
officer, as well as author. He was Deputy Chief of Mission
in France when Pablo Neruda was Ambassador. Later he
was Chargé d’Affaires in Cuba. His most celebrated book,
Persona Non-Grata, tells about his experiences in Cuba and
being kicked out by Castro. He now dedicates his time to
writing and journalism. His fiction has been praised and
he has won a number of awards, including the prestigious
Cervantes Award.
Isabel Allende, who is a distant cousin of former President
Salvador Allende, is one of Latin America’s most popular
authors. Her most famous work, The House of Spirits, is the
wonderful story of an eccentric, aristocratic Chilean family.
She no longer lives in Chile but the country remains a source
of inspiration for her work and she continues to publish
critically acclaimed novels.
Ariel Dorfman, novelist and playwright, has achieved
worldwide renown for his play Death and the Maiden.
This story focuses on the confrontation between a torture
victim and her tormentor. Dorfman was exiled by the
Pinochet government and has been a vocal critic of both
this dictatorship and all instances of oppression. Many of
his works deal with human rights issues. Luis Sepúlveda’s
best-known book is The Old Man Who Read Love Stories.
He does not write travel literature, but his descriptions of
South America give you a very precise feeling of what it is
like to be there.
Every one of the authors listed earlier—Donoso, Edwards,
Allende, Dorfman and Sepúlveda—lived in exile during the