The collection consists of personal papers of Donoso, the man and the writer. Included are typescript drafts of several of his major works, Este domingo, El obsceno pájaro de la noche, Historia personal del "boom", " Tres novelitas burguesas, Casa de campo, and La desesperanza; correspondence from family members, publishers, and literary friends, such as Latin American writers Carlos Fuentes, Ernesto Sábato, Gustavo Sainz, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez, Donoso's literary agent Carmen Balcells, and filmmaker Luis Buñuel; manuscripts of short stories, articles, speeches and lectures, plays and screenplays; and material about Donoso, such as interviews, essays, newspaper clippings, and a filmscript on his life.

Also included are Donoso's notebooks, numbered 34-50 and 52-64, covering (with gaps) the period from 7 January 1966 to 25 August 1978. They afford the reader several perspectives of Donoso's creative life—literary, biographical, and sociological—capturing and refining the author's ideas before and after the actual composition of the drafts, providing allusions to other works and occasional critical comments, and illuminating the problems and advantages created by exile, the social environment of exiled Latin American writers, and, sometimes, the author's reactions to certain political events.

Furthermore, there is a small selection of miscellaneous material, including awards, photographs, contracts and correspondence of his wife, María Pilar Serrano.