Penguin_1080x1200_Where-to-Start-With-Roberto-Bolano

Reading lists

Where to start reading Roberto Bolaño’s books

Distant Star

Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was once the quiet, unknowable, unpromising member of Chile&rsquo;s young poetry scene. 
 
But the military coup of 1973 sees Alberto reborn as Chile&rsquo;s leading celebrity poet, Carlos Wieder. Known for his daring sky poems, penned in smoke high above the cities, Weider&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 ANDREWS 
 
&lsquo;Roberto Bolaño's universe &ndash; huge, interconnected, polyphonic &ndash; 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 century&rsquo; Lauren Groff 
 
&lsquo;For stunning wit, brutal honesty, loving humanity and a heart that bleeds into the simplest of words, no other writer ever came close&rsquo; Marlon James

Roberto Bolaño (Author) Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealism poetry movement. Described by the New York Times as ‘the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation’, he was the author of over twenty works, including The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998, and 2666, which posthumously won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty, just as his writing found global recognition. Chris Andrews (Translator) Chris Andrews was born in Newcastle, Australia, in 1962. He teaches in the department of French, Italian and Spanish Studies of the University of Melbourne. His translation of Roberto Bolaño's Distant Star in 2005 won the prestigious Valle-Inclán Prize.

Monsieur Pain

Paris, 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 ANDREWS 
 
&lsquo;A surrealist nightmare, with overtones of Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler&rsquo; The Times 
 
This 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 be quite an experience&rsquo; Irish Times

This 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 be quite an experience.

[Monsieur Pain is] a taste of what made him such a formidable talent.

Monsieur Pain is a mystery in which the mystery remains unsolved. The novel strikes a compelling balance of lucidity and strangeness.

Bolaño creates the atmosphere of a surrealist nightmare, with overtones of Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler.

Whodunnit with no who or it and precious little dunn, but plenty to offer the lover of literary intrigue.

Cowboy Graves

Three 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 &lsquo;Cowboy Graves,&rsquo; Arturo Belano &ndash; Bolaño's alter ego &ndash; returns to Chile after the coup to fight with his comrades for socialism. &lsquo;French Comedy of Horrors&rsquo; finds a seventeen-year-old recruited into a secret society of artists in the sewers of Paris. And in &lsquo;Fatherland,&rsquo; 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 WIMMER 
 
&lsquo;His work is as vital, thrilling and life-enhancing as anything in modern fiction&rsquo; Sunday Times 
 
&lsquo;Fascinating... A rare opportunity for the reader to witness the creation of a seemingly inexhaustible body of work&rsquo; El Pais

The Savage Detectives may have made Bolaño’s name, but his posthumous publications—from the galactic 2666 to the winsome Spirit of Science Fiction—have cemented his legend. He left behind a vault to rival Prince’s 'Paisley Park'. . . . The effect of Cowboy Graves is less the piecing together of a puzzle than the recentering of a whole, mythic world.

Companionable, exotic, witty and glamorously suggestive.

“Bolaño readers can survey [Cowboy Graves] to glimpse into his artistic process, into the fountain of his creativity. . . . One of Bolaño’s great narrative skills is his ability to casually express the enigma of life, the lacuna between humanity’s capacity for comprehension and the world’s unknowable. . . . His writing is global and encyclopedic, curative and addictive, and vibrant and visceral.

Cowboy Graves contains writing completed over a period of 10 years, and features many of the touchstones Bolaño was known for: semi-autobiographical narration; a humorous, fragmentary style; and the sort of intrigue that grabs hold of you and never lets go, despite offering no easy answers.

Bolaño's brilliant oeuvre expands with another bright starburst, this one comprising three separate yet thematically connected novellas...Bolaño's inimitable style and searing vision will appeal to fans and new readers alike.

Each story reveals a centrifugal writer with a brilliant command of words and no fear of a plot’s getting away from him.

Roberto Bolaño (Author) Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealism poetry movement. Described by the New York Times as ‘the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation’, he was the author of over twenty works, including The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998, and 2666, which posthumously won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty, just as his writing found global recognition. Natasha Wimmer (Translator) Natasha Wimmer is the translator of nine books by Roberto Bolaño, including The Savage Detectives and 2666. Her recent translations include Nona Fernández’s Voyager and Álvaro Enrigue’s Sudden Death.

Antwerp

Amidst 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 &ndash; but every door opens onto a nightmare. 
 
An experimental novella, spliced together in vignettes, Antwerp is Roberto Bolaño&rsquo;s first work of fiction. A personal declaration of the power of literature, to read it is to be present at &lsquo;the big bang&rsquo; of Bolaño&rsquo;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&rsquo;s bookshelf' Daily Telegraph 
 
&lsquo;Bolaño 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&rsquo; Benjamín Labatut, author of The Maniac

A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan’s bookshelf . . . the sentences whizz over your head like bullets.

It’s hard to think of a writer who has multiplied the possibilities more times than Roberto Bolaño.

There is great value if you are already a devotee.

Amulet

Auxilio 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 &lsquo;choked by the brilliance of youth&rsquo;, Auxilio&rsquo;s passionate narration &ndash; both heartbreaking and lyrical &ndash; is suffused with the essence of Roberto Bolaño&rsquo;s art. 
 
TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS 
 
'Encapsulates the violence and tragedy of recent Latin American history' The Times 
 
&lsquo;Roberto Bolaño redefined the form of the novel in his masterpiece 2666; with the hallucinatory narrative of Amulet, he reimagines what literature can become&rsquo; New Statesman

Roberto Bolaño redefined the form of the novel in his masterpiece 2666; with the hallucinatory narrative of Amulet, he reimagines what literature can become.

A curtain-raising taster to the epic of his landmark works.

His work is the crossroads where Márquez meets Burroughs and Borges meets Mailer, resulting in a riotous dust-up.

Encapsulates the violence and tragedy of recent Latin American history . . . spare but beautifully compacted.

A short, original, engaged and engaging novel; a good introduction to the longer works of this writer.

Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealism poetry movement. Described by the New York Times as ‘the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation’, he was the author of over twenty works, including The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998, and 2666, which posthumously won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty, just as his writing found global recognition.

Auxilio 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 &lsquo;choked by the brilliance of youth&rsquo;, Auxilio&rsquo;s passionate narration &ndash; both heartbreaking and lyrical &ndash; is suffused with the essence of Roberto Bolaño&rsquo;s art. 
 
TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS 
 
'Encapsulates the violence and tragedy of recent Latin American history' The Times 
 
&lsquo;Roberto Bolaño redefined the form of the novel in his masterpiece 2666; with the hallucinatory narrative of Amulet, he reimagines what literature can become&rsquo; New Statesman

A Little Lumpen Novelita

'Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime' 
 
So begins Bianca&rsquo;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 &ndash; delivers a fractured fairy tale of taking control of one's fate. 
 
TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER 
 
&lsquo;Bolaño has proven that literature can do everything&rsquo; The New York Times 
 
&lsquo;The man was a flat-out genius, one of the greatest writers of our time&rsquo; Paul Auster

One of the best books of the year–A Little Lumpen Novelita feels as substantial as a book three times as long. This is a glittering gem, as maddening and haunting as you'd expect from Bolano.

As for Bolano, what can one say? One of our greatest writers, a straight colossus.

Bolano has proven that literature can do everything.

The very highest level of literary achievement.

Roberto Bolano was an exemplary literary rebel. To drag fiction toward the unknown, he had to go there himself, and there invent a method with which to represent it. Since the unknown place was reality, the results were multi-dimensional.

Roberto Bolaño

Readers who have snacked on Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño's oeuvre is among the great, blistering literary achievements of the twentieth century

One of the greatest and most distinctive voices in modern fiction

A supernova of creativity whose light is still arriving at our shores

A master of the short form… essential – and unforgettable

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRIS POWER 
 
‘A master of the short form’ Independent 
 
Wide-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 Auster 
 
‘Bolaño was a game changer: his field was politics, poetry and melancholia . . . and his writing was always unparalleled’ Mariana Enríquez

Roberto Bolaño

Praise for The Collected Short Stories of Roberto Bolaño

Readers who have snacked on Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño's oeuvre is among the great, blistering literary achievements of the twentieth century

One of the greatest and most distinctive voices in modern fiction

Readers who have snacked on Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño's oeuvre is among the great, blistering literary achievements of the twentieth century

One of the greatest and most distinctive voices in modern fiction

Readers who have snacked on Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño's oeuvre is among the great, blistering literary achievements of the twentieth century

One of the greatest and most distinctive voices in modern fiction

Books by Roberto Bolaño

Articles featuring Roberto Bolaño

Where to start reading Roberto Bolaño’s books

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