Books by Roberto Bolano

Book SynopsisFather Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix is dying.A priest, a member of Opus Dei, a literary critic and a poet, in his feverish delirium the crucial events of his past swell around him.From glimpses of the great poet Pablo Neruda, the German writer Ernst Junger and his one-time student, General Pinochet, to nightmarish flashes of falcons and falconers, the Chilean landscape and faces of those now dead, reality and imagination crowd and clamber in pursuit of the wizened youth' who still haunts Father Lacroix all these years later.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWSThe wit, the horror, the ambition, the strangeness; Roberto Bolaño's work is a sprawling labyrinth of surprise, bold invention, and images that will live with you forever' Chris PowerFew are the writers who have mastered the alchemy of turning the trivial into the sublime, the everyday into adventure. Bolaño is among the best at this diabolical skill' Georgi Gospodinov, author of

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Book SynopsisThree fiercely original tales. An unexpected treasure from the vault of a revolutionary talent.Roberto Bolaño''s boundless gift for shaping the chaos of reality into fiction is unmistakable across these three novellas. In Cowboy Graves,' Arturo Belano Bolaño''s alter ego returns to Chile after the coup to fight with his comrades for socialism. French Comedy of Horrors' finds a seventeen-year-old recruited into a secret society of artists in the sewers of Paris. And in Fatherland,' a young poet reckons with the fascist overthrow of his country, as the woman he is obsessed with disappears in the ensuing violence.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERHis work is as vital, thrilling and life-enhancing as anything in modern fiction' Sunday TimesFascinating... A rare opportunity for the reader to witness the creation of a seemingly inexhaustible body of work' El Pais

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Book SynopsisTwo young poets, Jan and Remo, find themselves adrift in Mexico City.Obsessed with poetry, and, above all, with science fiction, they are eager to forge a life in the literary world. But as close as these friends are, the city tugs them in opposite directions.Jan withdraws from the world, shutting himself in their shared rooftop apartment where he feverishly composes fan letters to the stars of science fiction. Meanwhile, Remo runs head-first into the future, spending his days and nights with a circle of wild young writers, seeking pleasure in the city's labyrinthine streets, rundown cafes, and murky bathhouses.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERFascinating... Achingly beautiful... It reads like a dispatch from beyond the grave' New YorkerThe Spirit of Science Fiction functions as a kind of key to the jewelled box of Bolaño's fictions... A cocktail of sorrow and ecstasy' Paris Review

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Book SynopsisWhen Oscar Amalfitano begins an affair with one of his students, he has no idea where it will lead.More than his turbulent revolutionary past, or the death of his beautiful wife, the scandalous exposure of this relationship will change him for ever. Forced to flee Barcelona with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Amalfitano finds himself in Santa Teresa, a sprawling, mythical town on the Mexico-US border, populated by mysterious characters and haunted by dark tales of murdered women.Returning to the the world and characters of 2666, Bolaño''s masterpiece, Woes of the True Policeman explores the the power of art, memory and desire - and marks a kaleidoscopic, lyrical and darkly humorous last act in one of the great oeuvres of world literature.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERHallucinatory, manic, fearful, comic... Bolaño must be read by anyone who loves the novel' HeraldWe savour all he has written as every offeri

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Book Synopsis''Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime''So begins Bianca's tale of growing up the hard way. Orphaned overnight as a teenager, she drops out of school and drifts into the bad company of two criminals her brother brings home. As the four of them plot a fantastical crime, Bianca learns she can drift even lower...Electric and tense with foreboding, A Little Lumpen Novelita - one of the last novellas Roberto Bolaño published delivers a fractured fairy tale of taking control of one''s fate.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERBolaño has proven that literature can do everything' The New York TimesThe man was a flat-out genius, one of the greatest writers of our time' Paul Auster

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Book SynopsisIf you''re going to say what you want to say, you''re going to hear what you don''t want to hear...'A rat policeman comes to the startling realisation that each rat is out for themselves. An elderly judge gives up his job in the city for an improbable return to the family farm in the Pampas. An elusive film-maker and the little-known Argentinian novelist whose work he''s plagiarized for years, finally fall into confrontation.Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled and yet somehow haywire, the five short stories included in The Insufferable Gaucho are some of Roberto Bolaño''s best. In addition, two essays are included: provocative and often scathing, they too are alive with Bolaño''s trademark humour, violence and utter faith in the power of the written word.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWSAn exemplary literary rebel' New York Review of BooksA master of the short form' IndependentBolaño wrote

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Book SynopsisIn this neighbourhood, only the dead go out for a walk'...A young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor, only to watch his soul departing his body. Two embittered police detectives debate their favourite weapons. A violent man looks back on his childhood and seeks out the now-aged male porn actor his mother shot movies with.Here is the eagerly anticipated second volume of stories by Roberto Bolaño. Tender or etched in acid; hazily suggestive or chillingly definitive: The Return is a trove of strangely arresting short master works.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''Dark, intimate and sneakily touching... There is gold to be found in this collection'' New York Review of BooksEach tale turns the reader into a voyeur, grasping at snapshots of troubled lives and ghosts' Observer A compelling encapsulation of Bolaño''s work... You won''t be bored' Los Angeles Times

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Book SynopsisDropped from the Olympic figure skating team, Nuria Martí's fate pivots her into a world of corruption, jealousy and revenge.Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old masion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is he paid for it using public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene.Narrated by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous civil servant, The Skating Rink is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''A work of intense and unrealized longing'' The New York TimesBolaño makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' Guardian

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Book SynopsisThis is where the story should end, but life is not as kind as literature...'A journey to Acapulco gradually becomes a descent into the underworld. An elderly South American writer instructs a protégé in the subterfuges of entering work for provincial literary prizes. A litany unfolds, offering sixty-nine reasons why not to dance with Pablo Neruda.The melancholy folklore of exile,' as Roberto Bolaño once put it, pervades the fourteen haunting stories of Last Evenings on Earth. Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin America and Europe, and peopled by Bolano''s beloved failed generation,' this collection was the first to introduce the English-speaking world to Bolaño's immeasurable gifts as a short-story writer.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWSMay be the most haunting and mesmerising collection I have ever read' Daily TelegraphIt is a shame that Bolaño has no more evenings on earth, his unique voice asserting the imp

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Book SynopsisNew Year's Eve, 1975. Two hunted men leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala.Their quest: to track down the mythical, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. But, twenty years later, they are still on the run. The Savage Detectives is their remarkable journey through our darkening universe. Told, shared and mythologised by a generation of lovers, rebels and readers, their testimonies are woven together into one of the most dazzling Latin American novels of all time.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERRoberto Bolaño was a game changer: his field was politics, poetry and melancholia. He could be funny, he could be literate, he could be devastating. And his writing was always unparalleled' Mariana Enríquez, author of Our Share of NightBolaño makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' Guardian

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Book SynopsisParis, 1938. The Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo lies in hospital, hiccupping himself to death.When the doctors struggle to offer a diagnosis, his wife calls on an acquaintance of her friend Madame Reynaud, the mesmerist and reclusive bachelor Pierre Pain. Pain, in love and eager to impress, agrees to help. But on a night that ''smells of something strange'', things soon go awry...A wonderfully oneiric novella that blends the finest of Edgar Allan Poe with Jorge Luis Borges and Bolano''s truly astonishing alchemical gifts, Monsieur Pain is a gripping noir conspiracy as rich as it is strange.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWSA surrealist nightmare, with overtones of Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler' The TimesThis marvellous little yarn is dark, mysterious and rich in surprises... If you have yet to enter the daringly kaleidoscopic labyrinth that is Roberto Bolano''s imagination, this is a lively place to begin what will

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRIS POWERA master of the short form' IndependentWide-ranging, suggestive, and ever-daring, Roberto Bolaño's short stories map out the dark terrain that he would go on to explore in his novellas and epic novels. From melancholic portraits of exile and its folklore to a rogue's gallery of desperate characters futilely attempting to unearth the animating secrets of the world, each of Bolaño's short fictions adds yet another door, a window, a secret passage onto the sinister, eerie universe that Bolaño brought to life across his body of work. Bringing together Last Evenings on Earth, The Return and The Insufferable Gaucho, as well as Bolaño's posthumously published stories, this new book marks the first time these fictions have been collected in one edition, allowing for a major reappraisal of the vital place that the short story commands for Bolaño's literary legacy. Bolaño was a flat-out genius, one of the greatest writers of our time' Paul AusterBolaño wa

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Book SynopsisSanta Teresa, on the Mexico-US border: an urban sprawl that draws lost souls to it like a vortex.Convicts and academics find themselves here, as does an American sportswriter, a teenage student with her widowed father, and a reclusive, ''missing'' author. But, there is a darker side to the town. Girls and women are disappearing at an alarming rate.As a sense of conspiracy grows and an apocalyptic shadow draws closer, the corruption, violence and decadence of twentieth-century history reveals itself in a novel of an astonishing scale and burning intensity.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERA landmark in what's possible for the novel. Bolaño has proven it can do anything' New York TimesWondrous... Unforgettable...will resonate for years to come' Daily TelegraphAs riveting as any top-notch thriller... 2666 achieves something extremely rare in fiction: it provides an all-encompassing view of our world'

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Book SynopsisAlberto Ruiz-Tagle was once the quiet, unknowable, unpromising member of Chile's young poetry scene.But the military coup of 1973 sees Alberto reborn as Chile's leading celebrity poet, Carlos Wieder. Known for his daring sky poems, penned in smoke high above the cities, Weider's dazzling trajectory is a cause for astonishment and speculation amongst his old poetry friends. Where did this talent suddenly spring from? And, how is it connected to the disappearance of the beautiful Garmendia twins?Told from across the years in exile in Europe, the narrator's attempts to trace the fate of his old circle will lead him to one last confrontation with the brutality of their generation.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWSRoberto Bolaño''s universe huge, interconnected, polyphonic is formed from the collision of a wicked sense of humour and a vast and white-hot moral fire... His oeuvre is among the great, blistering literary achievements of the twentieth cent

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Book SynopsisMass-murdering authors. Writers at the head of a football-hooligan ring. A pilot who crafts his poetry in the sky.A tour de force of black humour and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of pan-American writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.Terrifyingly witty and remarkably inventive, this is the virtuosic, one-of-a-kind masterpiece which brought Bolaño fame throughout the Spanish-speaking world.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''The best and weirdest kind of literary game... A strangely profound place to get lost' Financial TimesA darkly comic celebration of the wilder horizons of writing, good, plodding, lunatic and terrible' London Review of Books

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Book SynopsisAmidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites of the Costa Brava, someone has gone missing.A detective sets out to find them. They search among the hapless girls, failed poets, and shifty policemen that populate this dream world but every door opens onto a nightmare.An experimental novella, spliced together in vignettes, Antwerp is Roberto Bolaño's first work of fiction. A personal declaration of the power of literature, to read it is to be present at the big bang' of Bolaño's enterprise into prose, to see the beginning, to witness the moment when his talent explodes.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER''A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan's bookshelf'' Daily TelegraphBolaño set a new speed limit for literature. He simply wrote past other authors... His books are volcanic, perilous, charged with infectious erotic energy and demonic lucidity' Benjamín Labatut, author of The Maniac

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Book SynopsisAuxilio Lacouture is trapped.For twelve days she hides alone in a lavatory on the fourth floor of her university. Staring at the floor, she begins a heartfelt and feverish tale: she is the Mother of Mexican poetry.A highly charged first-person semi-hallucinatory novella, Amulet is a potent stream of consciousness through which the poets of Mexico rage and swirl. Filled with wild, dark literary prophecies, heroic poets, mad poets, artists choked by the brilliance of youth', Auxilio's passionate narration both heartbreaking and lyrical is suffused with the essence of Roberto Bolaño's art.TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS''Encapsulates the violence and tragedy of recent Latin American history'' The TimesRoberto Bolaño redefined the form of the novel in his masterpiece 2666; with the hallucinatory narrative of Amulet, he reimagines what literature can become' New Statesman

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Book SynopsisWar-games champion Udo Berger is finally on holiday.Travelling to the Costa Brava with his long-ignored girlfriend, Ingeborg, there they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, and a band of shady locals. They have fun, see the sights, relax. Then, late one night, Charly disappears without a trace.Desperate to solve the mystery, Udo refuses to leave, even after Ingeborg returns home. Increasingly frightened, the situation slips beyond his grasp and Udo suddenly realizes that the consequences of this game' are much more serious than he ever imagined.TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMERCapering, weird, rascally and short... The Third Reich is giddily funny, but it is also prickly and bizarre enough to count among Bolaño's first-rate efforts' The EconomistA mesmerizing tale: sleek, linear, easily digested, beautifully translated Classic Bolaño' Washington Post

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Book SynopsisAn astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a man's life that became a lightning rod for inspiration.Trade Review"May it herald many more such unsettling and elegant parables to come." -- Mark Doty - Los Angeles Times"Aira oversteps the bounds of realism, forcing the world to live up to his imagination." -- Benjamin Lytal - New York Sun"I’m about to reread César Aira’s An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter once again. The book’s mere 87 pages are so multi­faceted and transporting and I get so absorbed that upon finishing I don’t remember anything. Like having a complex cinematic dream that dissipates upon awakening." -- Patti Smith - New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisEntre la narrativa detectivesca, la novela de carretera, el relato biográfico y la crónica, Los detectives salvajes está considerada por la crítica y el público de todo el mundo como una de las mejores y más originales ficciones escritas en las últimas décadas.Todo lo que comienza como comedia indefectiblemente acaba como misterio.Dos jóvenes poetas latinoamericanos, Arturo Belano y Ulises Lima, emprenden una aventura que transcurrirá durante varias décadas y cruzará distintos países. Símbolo de la rebeldía y la necesidad de ruptura con la realidad establecida, sus vidas representan los anhelos de toda una generación. La búsqueda en 1975 de la misteriosa escritora mexicana Cesárea Tinarejo, desaparecida y olvidada en los años posteriores a la revolución, sirve de inicio a un viaje sin descanso marcado por el amor, la muerte, el deseo de libertad, el humor y la literatura.Una obra sorprendente y renovadora en la que está esbozado, como si de un juego de caj

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Book SynopsisEl perenne detective salvaje Arturo Belano presenta al lector un retrato de Carlos Wieder, poeta y aviador, encarnación de la más profunda infamia.Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, fascinante y seductor poeta autodidacta habitual de los talleres literarios del Chile de Salvador Allende, y Carlos Wieder, piloto de las fuerzas aéreas chilenas que escribía versículos de la Biblia con el humo de una avioneta tras el golpe de estado de Pinochet: una y otra cara de la misma moneda, uno y el mismo oscuro personaje. Un individuo, encarnación pura del mal y la crueldad, que el narrador de esta historia, el alter ego de Bolaño y perenne detective salvaje Arturo Belano, se cuida de desmenuzar.Esfumado durante la transición democrática, el poeta y el investigador Abel Romero irán tras sus huellas y las de las desaparecidas hermanas Garmendia para hacer justicia al margen de la ley. La búsqueda conducirá sus pasos a ambos lados del Atlántico, de Chile y México a Barcelona y Blanes, hundiéndose en el más profundo vórtice de la infamia.Reseñas:Todos los escritores quieren ser como Bolaño: innovadores y audaces en el estilo, seductores en la narración; en otras palabras, excepcionales.Scott Bryan Wilson, The Quarterly ConversationMe temo que hay que haber vivido y leído tanto como Bolaño para leerlo con propiedad.Jorge Carrión

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Book SynopsisAhora soy una madre y también una mujer casada, pero no hace mucho fui una delincuente. Así inicia Bianca el relato de su dura entrada a la edad adulta en Roma, en Una novelita lumpen.Tras la temprana muerte de sus padres en un trágico accidente automovilístico, Bianca, poco más que una adolescente, protagonista y voz por medio de la cual se hilvana la narración, se descubre avocada al abismo de su indiferente existencia, dirigida irremediablemente a un camino que no conduce a ningún futuro. Desde entonces dedica sus horas a lavar, tintar y cortar pelo mientras su hermano menor se mezcla con gente de dudosa reputación en el gimnasio donde trabaja.La aparición de dos hombres misteriosos supondrá la oportunidad de cometer un delito que podría rescatarles de las penurias económicas. La pequeña fortuna de un viejo y ciego actor podría resultar en una puerta de huida que los llevase a algún lugar; el que fuera, pero a alguno.Bianca tiene mucho que ganar y nada que perder, pues qué ha de esperar quien ha abandonado toda esperanza?

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