SOURCE: "José Donoso," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 239, No. 52, November 30, 1992, pp. 30-1.

[In the following interview, Mestrovic questions Donoso about The Garden Next Door. Speaking about the novel's autobiographical content, its use of realistic characters and details, and his education and life in general, Donoso provides the interviewer with details about his career.]

In The Garden Next Door, a middle-aged Chilean writer who has never quite achieved the popularity of other Latin American authors of the same generation fails at writing the "great Chilean social novel," the masterpiece that is supposed to secure his place in modern literature. Simultaneously, through a blur of alcohol and Valium, he and his wife watch their marriage dissolve, then resurrect itself.

The Chilean writer José Donoso is the author of The Garden Next Door. Since he is known for his experimental works, readers may well suspect that despite the realism with which events...