Bonsai

Reviews

Winner of Chile’s Literary Critics’ Award for Best Novel

“A truly sublime novella . . . Zambra turns sentiment and nostalgia into occasions for humor, vulnerability and truth by deploying a frank specificity. There are no canned phrases in Zambra . . . There’s a dreamy associative quality of [Bonsai] that made it feel true and beautiful and moving.” —Brandon Taylor, The New York Times Book Review

“Lively, often funny and aphoristic . . . [Bonsai] holds stories within stories.” —James Wood, The New Yorker
 
“Readers who consider Roberto Bolaño the pole star of contemporary Chilean fiction will be jolted by Zambra's little book . . . Zambra is indeed the herald of a new wave of Chilean fiction.” —The Nation
 
“A subtle, eerie, ultimately wrenching account of failed young love . . . A total knockout.” —Junot Díaz, The New York Times Book Review

“Bonsai has been praised the world over . . . this is the perfect time to discover (or re-discover) it. Not a single word is wasted in this powerful, elegantly told story . . . unforgettable.” —LitHub

“Deceptively simple, this profound tale of ephemeral love will, despite the brevity of the telling, haunt you.” —Bonsai

“A highly original work, full of unforgettable sparks of humor . . . brief as a sigh and forceful as a blow.” —El Capital
 
“A literary creation of the highest order . . . Bonsai is an exquisitely articulated work . . . an unclassifiable object of unusual beauty . . . one of the two or three best Chilean novels of recent times.” —Las Últimas Noticias
 
“[U]ndeniably fascinating . . . the kind of story that lingers in the mind for weeks after being read.” —The Quarterly Conversation

“What is remarkable about Zambra’s novella is the space between ending and beginning—the progressive prose that relates a true story with emotional and artistic implications extending far beyond its concise pages.” —Bookslut

“Bonsai is an appealing miniature, a novella that, despite its brevity, feels airy and full … an enjoyable, pleasantly surprising, and clever read.” —The Complete Review

“It is often said of a book that it is worth reading; rarely, as in [Bonsai’s] case, will it be enjoyed even more in its rereading.”— ABC España
 
“[Bonsai] is literature of the best kind, a work of strange maturity that makes brevity one of its greatest virtues, due to how much can be said and above all suggested in so few pages.” —El Mercurio Expand reviews