SOURCE: McMurray, George R. Review of Konfidenz, by Ariel Dorfman. World Literature Today 70, no. 4 (autumn 1996): 922.

In the following review, McMurray criticizes Dorfman's confusing and overly obtuse narrative structure in Konfidenz.

A native of Chile residing in the United States, Ariel Dorfman is one of Latin America's better-known contemporary writers. My favorite of his works is Some Write to the Future (1991), a collection of perceptive essays. One of his best-known novels is La última canción de Manuel Sendero (1982), about the revolt of unborn babies against an oppressive society. The criticism of that novel as being somewhat abstruse could also apply to Konfidenz. In the initial lines of the latter a young woman named Barbara has just arrived in Paris and, upon entering her hotel room, hears her telephone ringing. There follows a long, puzzling conversation—the major segment of the novel—between her and her unknown interlocutor.

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