In the short story "Silva the Eye," Bolano writes in the opening sentence: "It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as The Eye, always tried to escape violence, even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around 20 years old when Salvador Allende died. Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin America and Europe, and peopled by Bolano's beloved "failed generation," the stories ofLast Evenings on Earth have appeared in The New...

Composed of short biographies about imaginary writers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Columbia, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the USA, Nazi Literature in the Americas includes descriptions of the writers' works, cross references, a bibliography, and also an epilogue ("For Monsters"). All the writers are carefully and credibly situated in real literary worlds. There are fourteen thematic sections with titles such as "Forerunners and Figures of the Anti-Enlightenment," "Magicians, Mercenaries and Miserable Individuals," and "North American Poets." Brisk and pseudo-academic,...

Paris, 1938. The Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo is in the hospital, afflicted with an undiagnosed illness, and unable to stop hiccuping. His wife calls on an acquaintance of her friend Madame Reynaud: the Mesmerist Pierre Pain. Pain, a timid bachelor, is in love with the widow Reynaud, and agrees to help. But two mysterious Spanish men follow Pain and bribe him not to treat Vallejo, and Pain takes the money. Ravaged by guilt and anxiety, however, he does not intend to abandon his new patient, but then Pain s access to the hospital is barred and Madame Reynaud leaves Paris . Another practioner of...

Antwerp s fractured narration in 54 sections voices from a dream, from a nightmare, from passers by, from an omniscient narrator, from Roberto Bolano all speak moves in multiple directions and cuts to the bone. "

Although a few have been serialized inThe New Yorker and Playboy, most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to Bolano s many readers will be like catnip to the cats. "

A trove of strange, arresting, short masterworks - five stories and two essays - by Roberto Bolano, a writer who pulls bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat."

Between Parentheses collects Roberto Bolano s nonfiction: fiercely opinionated articles, speeches, essays, and talks, as well as most of the newspaper columns he wrote during the last five years of his life, when fame had come to him at last. Here we have a tender account of his return to Chile, reflections on family life, impassioned takes on books by writers Bolano admired (or vehemently despised), and advice on how to write a short story. Between Parentheses fully lives up to Bolano s own demands: I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity on all levels. "

The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories that seem to tell what Bolano called the secret story, the one we ll never know. Bent on returning to haunt you, Bolano s tales might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend, or soccer, witchcraft, or a dream of meeting the poet Enrique Lihn: they always surprise. Consider the title story: a young partygoer collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor. Just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange happenings are afoot around his now dead body and what follows next defies the imagination...

The stories in The Insufferable Gaucho unpredictable and daring, highly controlled yet somehow haywire might concern a stalwart rat police detective investigating terrible rodent crimes, or an elusive plagiarist, or an elderly Argentine lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the familye state on the Pampas, now gone to wrack and ruin. These five astonishing stories, along with two compelling essays, show Bolano as a magician, pulling bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat."