The river flowed in a dark, narrow channel. Light filtered in diagonal streaks through the canopy of overhanging trees. Cries from unseen animals filled the air from time to time. Flocks of parrots went shrieking past overhead, almost drowning out the clatter of the diesel of the battered old boat, The Princess Isabella, that chugged its way into the dark Amazon jungle. On board the boat, sprawled in a hammock, César Calderón stared into the dank nothingness. He had just deserted a pregnant mistress and abandoned his business. In a bar in Santa Rosa a strange man had threatened to kill him. A man to whom he had done nothing, had in no way provoked, yet who claimed he, Calderón, owed him his life. Perhaps Calderón had no alternative but to fulfil a bewildering yet murderous destiny. For had his grandmother not offered him this disturbing advice: 'Go and find your father, hug him and embrace him, but stick a knife in his chest and let him fall at your feet.' For in this haunting work of fiction the son must both abandon and become the father, and the father must always embrace death in the person of the son. Writing in a style of deceptive simplicity, Zulfikar Ghose weaves a magical spell. Don Bueno is both straightforward and rich in resonance and symbol, wonderfully dreamlike yet solidly of and about this world. In this, his ninth novel, he demonstrates once again that he is a writer of increasing stature and accomplishment who makes his own way and creates his own world without regard for facile trends or shifting tastes.
Zulfikar Ghose is internationally known as a critic, poet and novelist. His books include Jets from Orange, Figures of Enchantment and a trilogy, The Incredible Brazilian. His work has received praise from T. S. Eliot, Anthony Burgess, John Fowles and Michael Moorcock, amongst others. Born in 1935 in Sialkot, Pakistan, Ghose emigrated to England in 1952. After graduating from Keele University with a BA in English and Philosophy, he lived in London where he was a cricket correspondent for The Observer and wrote for the Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator and the Western Daily Press. In 1960, he met the novelist and poet B. S. Johnson, with whom he became close friends, and in the same year he joined The Group - a collection of poets who met at Edward Lucie-Smith's house in Chelsea to discuss their work. These meetings were attended by, amongst others, George MacBeth and Philip Hobsbaum, and occasionally by Ted Hughes. In 1963, Zulfikar Ghose was put forward for the E. C. Gregory Award by the judges T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read, Henry Moore and Howard Sergeant; but when Eliot fell ill, his place on the committee was taken by a solicitor who raised an objection concerning Ghose's nationality. The committee decided to overcome the legal hurdle by giving him a "Special Award". His works comprise books and poems published on both sides of the Atlantic and where his rich prose has been described as "remarkable, imagistic, witty and original" and all his writing "sheer literary pleasure, exciting, effective, evocative and the beauty of great art". In 1969, Ghose emigrated to the U.S.A after an invitation to teach at the University of Texas at Austin. He had tea with Patricia Nixon at the White House who presented him with a copy of The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop. He became a US citizen in 2004 and went on to hold the distinguished position of Susan Taylor McDaniel Regents Professor in Creative Writing. Ghose, now retired from full-time teaching, is the Professor Emeritus, University Texas at Austin. He lives with his wife Helena de la Fontaine, an artist from Brazil, whom he married in London in 1964.
