A House in the Country (Translate)

Games turn to nightmares during the summer holidays at the magnificent Chilean country estate of the Ventura family when the children - 33 cousins ranging in age from 6 to 16 - are left to themselves while their parents pursue their own pastimes. (Nancy Pearl)

A House in the Country (Casa de Campo) is Donoso's masterpiece and perhaps one of the great works of current narrative in the Spanish language. The cultural horizon of the novel is complex and at times fascinating. Donoso put his passionate knowledge of painting, music, literature, European and Latin American history here (…) the author's voice, the recourse to narrative artifice, are always present. There is a dense fabric, a true jungle of meanings and symbols. Casa de Campo, which was published in 1978, has been considered, from a sociological-literary perspective, as a political allegory of the dictatorship in Chile during the 1970s. Casa de campo introduces us to the Ventura family, a family of landowners who own important gold mines who arrive every summer in Marulanda where this great country house is located, where the seven Ventura brothers and their children enjoy refined luxuries and they are cared for by an army of servants. This country house, which appears, far from civilization, like a mirage, holds several of the Ventura family's secrets. It is recurrent to hear, from the mouths of the adults of the family, the expression "to draw the thick veil", always in the face of adverse or unpleasant situations for them, which it is better to ignore, not see.