The Obscene Bird of Night

Blurb

The Obscene Bird of Night is the most acclaimed novel by the Chilean writer José Donoso. Donoso was a member of the Latin American literary boom and the literary movement known as magical realism.
The novel explores the cyclical nature of life and death, in that our fears and fantasies of childhood resurface in adulthood and old age. It is about the deconstruction of self – to the extreme of trying ‘to live’ in non-existence.
The Imbunche myth is a major theme in the novel. It symbolises the process of implosion of the physical and/or intellectual self, turning the living being into a thing or object incapable of interacting with the outside world, and depriving it of its individuality and even of its name. This can either be self-inflicted or forced upon by others.
The myth comes from the oral tradition of Chiloé Island, an island of the southern coast of Chile. In its physical manifestation it is a grotesquely disfigured being that has been sutured, tied, bound and wrapped from birth. In this way, its orifices are sown shut, its tongue is removed or split, its extremities and sexual organ bound and immobilised. It is then kept as a guardian to a cave.