SOURCE: Oberhelman, Harley D. “José Donoso and the ‘Nueva Narrativa.’” Revista de Estudios Hispanicos 9 (1975): 107-17.

In the following essay, Oberhelman says that Donoso's El obsceno pájaro de la noche shows both a concern for national social problems and an adherence to the so-called “new narrative” of contemporary Spanish American letters which combines realistic and metaphysical elements.

The latest novel of José Donoso, El obsceno pájaro de la noche, is a complex statement of the metaphysical problems faced by humanity in the twentieth century. Published in 1970 at a time when Chile's political system was turning to state socialism in search of solutions to age-old nagging social and economic injustices, a careful reading of Donoso's text reveals a deep concern for national problems and at the same time marks the author as a major practitioner of the “nueva narrativa” in contemporary Spanish American letters.

Donoso, whose Coronación...