SOURCE: A review of Open Door, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. IX, No. 1, Spring, 1989, p. 243-44.

In the following review of Open Door, Horvath summarizes the themes and techniques of Valenzuela's short stories.

According to Evelyn Picon Garfield, Luisa Valenzuela "has become the most translated contemporary woman author from Latin America"—and for good reason, as readers of this journal's special issue on Valenzuela (Fall 1986) are well aware. The popularity and importance of her work reside both in the themes she dramatizes and in the means she employs to effect this drama, and if Valenzuela reminds one at times of García Márquez or Lydia Cabrera, Donald Barthelme or Paul Bowles, her fiction nonetheless achieves a distinctive voice that allows her o address issues she has clearly made her own.

As Valenzuela's first story collection since Up among the Eagles (Donde viven las águilas) appeared in...