José Manuel Donoso Yáñez was born on October 5, 1924, and died on December 7, 1996. He was a Chilean writer, journalist, and professor. He lived most of his life in Chile, but he chose to live away from his country for many years in Mexico, the United States, and Spain. He said he left Chile in the 1960s for personal reasons. However, after 1973, his time away from Chile also became a way to protest against the rule of Augusto Pinochet, a dictator. He returned to Chile in 1981 and remained there until his death in 1996.

Donoso wrote many short stories and novels that helped create the Latin American literary boom. His most famous works include the novels Coronation, Hell Has No Limits (El lugar sin límites), and The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche). His stories are known for their dark humor and explore themes such as sexuality, having different identities, and psychology.

Early life

Donoso was born in Santiago to José Donoso Donoso, a physician, and Alicia Yáñez. Alicia was the niece of Eliodoro Yáñez.

Donoso attended The Grange School, where he was a classmate of Luis Alberto Heiremans and Carlos Fuentes. Later, he studied at Liceo José Victorino Lastarria High School. During his childhood, he worked as a juggler and an office worker. Eventually, he began working as a writer and teacher.

In 1945, he traveled to the southern parts of Chile and Argentina, where he worked on sheep farms in the province of Magallanes. Two years later, he completed high school and enrolled in a program to study English at the Institute of Teaching at the Universidad de Chile. In 1949, he received a scholarship from the Doherty Foundation to study English literature at Princeton University. There, he studied with professors such as R. P. Blackmur, Lawrence Thompson, and Allen Tate. His first two stories, written in English, were published in Princeton magazine, MSS: "The Blue Woman" (1950) and "The Poisoned Pastries" (1951). Donoso graduated from Princeton in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, after completing a senior thesis titled "The Elegance of Mind of Jane Austen: An Interpretation of Her Novels Through the Attitudes of Heroines."

Career

In 1951, he traveled to Mexico and Central America. He returned to Chile and began teaching English at the Universidad Católica and Kent School in 1954.

His first book, Summer Vacation and Other Stories (Veraneo y otros cuentos), was published in 1955 and won the Santiago Municipal Prize. In 1957, while living with a family of fishermen on Isla Negra, he published his first novel, Coronación (Coronation), which described the wealthy Santiaguina classes and their decline. Eight years later, the book was translated and published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf and in England by The Bodley Head.

In 1958, he left Chile for Buenos Aires and returned to Chile in 1960.

He began writing for the magazine Revista Ercilla in 1959 and wrote stories while traveling in Europe. He worked as an editor and literary critic for Ercilla until 1964 and also served as a co-editor of the Mexican journal Siempre.

In 1961, he married María del Pilar Serrano (1925–1997), a painter, writer, and translator, also known as María Esther Serrano Mendieta. She was the daughter of Juan Enrique Serrano Pellé from Chile and Graciela Mendieta Alvarez from Bolivia. Donoso had previously met her in Buenos Aires.

The couple left Chile in 1965 for Mexico. Donoso worked as a writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa from 1965 to 1967. He and his wife moved to Spain in 1967. In 1968, the couple adopted a three-month-old girl from Madrid, whom they named María del Pilar Donoso Serrano, best known as Pilar Donoso.

Donoso taught a writing workshop in the Comparative Literature Department at Dartmouth College during the 1975 Summer Term.

In 1981, after returning to Chile, he conducted a literature workshop. During the first period, many writers, including Roberto Brodsky, Marco Antonio de la Parra, Carlos Franz, Carlos Iturra, Eduardo Llanos, Marcelo Maturana, Sonia Montecino Aguirre, Darío Oses, Roberto Rivera, Jaime Collyer, Gonzalo Contreras, and Jorge Marchant Lazcano, participated. Later, Arturo Fontaine Talavera, Alberto Fuguet, and Ágata Gligo joined, among others.

At the same time, he continued publishing novels, though they did not achieve the same level of acclaim as his earlier works. These included Curfew (La desesperanza), the novellas Taratuta, Still Life with Pipe (Naturaleza muerta con cachimba), and Donde van a morir los elefantes (1995). El mocho (1997) and The Lizard's Tale (Lagartija sin cola) were published after his death.

Death

José Donoso died from liver cancer in his home in Santiago on December 7, 1996, at the age of 72. It is said that on his deathbed, he asked his family to read the poems of Altazor by Vicente Huidobro. His remains were buried in a cemetery near a spa located in the province of Petorca, which is 80 kilometers from Valparaíso.

In 2009, his daughter, Pilar Donoso, published a biography of her father titled Correr el tupido velo (Drawing the Veil). The book was based on her father's private diaries, notes, and letters, as well as Pilar's own memories.

Awards and honors

• 1956: Award Municipal of Santiago
• 1962: William Faulkner Foundation Prize for Latin American Literature
• 1969: Award Pedro de Oña (Spain)
• 1978: Award of the Critic for Castilian Narrative (Spain)
• 1990: Award Mondello (Italy)
• 1990: National Literature Award in Chile
• 1991: Prix Roger Caillois (France)
• 1995: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit (Spain)