This article focuses on the figure of the garden in a selection of novels and urban chronicles by José Donoso. A study of these works reveals that the garden fosters the legibility of subjects and urban landscapes within a space of power where aesthetic and political discourses confront each other/are debated. The figure of the garden emerges as a milestone in a written and urban landscape that attracts the vigilant gaze of strategists and the communal aspirations of dissidents.