219 pages. The book suffers from the usual library damage, limited to the preliminaries as well as a missing back end paper. The body ofthe book is pristine, as though never borrowed. "Grotesque yet realistic at the same time, this first novel from the most famous Chilean narrator from the end of the last century, exposes the themes that will mark his future works: deterioration of society, identity questions, transgression and madness....years after its original publication this novel has already become a classic in Latin American literature." (publisher) "José Manuel Donoso Yáñez (5 October 1924 - 7 December 1996), known as José Donoso, was a Chilean writer, journalist and professor. He lived most of his life in Chile, although he spent many years in self-imposed exile in Mexico, the United States and Spain. Although he had left his country in the sixties for personal reasons, after 1973 he said his exile was also a form of protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He returned to Chile in 1981 and lived there until his death. Donoso is the author of a number of short stories and novels, which contributed greatly to the Latin American literary boom. His best known works include the novels Coronación (Coronation), El lugar sin límites (Hell Has No Limits) and El obsceno pájaro de la noche (The Obscene Bird of Night). His works deal with a number of themes, including sexuality, the duplicity of identity, psychology, and a sense of dark humor." (Wikipedia)