SOURCE: "Latin America Seen through the Eyes of Contemporary Writers," in The Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 1988, p. 20.

[In the following review, Agosin discusses Donoso's description of Chile in Curfew, and provides a brief plot summary. Asserting that the novel "manages to combine chaos, absurdity, and the reality of life under a dictatorial government in a masterly way," Agosin lauds Donoso's descriptive passages and attention to detail.]

José Donoso is one of Chile's foremost novelists, and one who is beginning to receive the attention he richly deserves. His story Curfew is very different from Dorfman's "Last Waltz in Santiago." Yet once again the theme, one might say their literary obsession, is their native land. Donoso writes with splendid subtlety. Curfew gravitates around two poles: the wake of Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, and the love relationship between Mañungo Vera, an exiled pop singer, and...