"[3] Zambra studied at the Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera and the University of Chile, from which he graduated in 1997 with a degree in Hispanic literature.

"[5] Zambra began with writing poetry, citing influences such as Nicanor Parra, Jorge Teillier, Gonzalo Millán, and Enrique Lihn, and his brief novels are noted for their poetic natures.

[7] Zambra also has worked as a literary critic for the newspaper La Tercera and as a professor at the School of Literature at Diego Portales University in Santiago.

As the highly influential Santiago newspaper El Mercurio summed up, "The publication of Bonsai ... marked a kind of bloodletting in Chilean literature.

"This small novel contains a surprising vastness, created by its structure of alternating chapters of fiction and reality," Adam Thirlwell writes in The New York Times.