Roberto Bolaño Books

Set against the backdrop of New Year's Eve 1975, two poets, Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, embark on a quest from Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala to find the elusive Cesárea Tinajero, a vanished poet. Their journey takes a violent turn in the Sonora desert, forcing them into a life on the run for twenty years. This ambitious novel captures their experiences through the perspectives of various characters they encounter across Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. Among them are the enchanting Font sisters, their father in a Mexico City asylum, a devoted follower of Octavio Paz, a brash American grad student, a French girl with a penchant for the Marquis de Sade, the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky, a Chilean stowaway gifted with numbers, an anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire, and an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola, alongside a host of critics, lovers, and vagabonds. Roberto Bolaño, a literary descendant of Borges and Pynchon, explores the intricate relationship between literature and violence, revealing a world where national boundaries blur and death is ever-present in the avant-garde. This work stands as a remarkable testament to the vitality of contemporary Latin American literature.

An American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student interact in an urban community on the U.S.-Mexico border where hundreds of young factory workers have disappeared.

Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation , "one of the remarkable qualities of Bolaño's short stories is that they can do the work of a novel". The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories bent on returning to haunt you. Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a Bolaño story might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend or a dream of meeting Enrique Lihn; his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece: a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor; just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange doings are afoot--and what follows next defies the imagination (except Bolaño's own). Although a few have been serialized in The New Yorker and Playboy , most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to Bolaño's many readers will be like catnip to the cats.

Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was once the quiet, unknowable, unpromising member of Chile's young poetry scene. 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. číst celé

The acclaimed Chilean author's first collection of stories to be published in English. Here are fourteen stories set largely among those living in the margins, on the edge. "The most haunting and mesmerizing collection I have ever read."--"Daily Telegraph"

With the release of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives in 1998,journalist Monica Maristain discovered a writer “capable of befriending his readers.” After exchanging several letters with Bolaño, Maristain formed a friendship of her own, culminating in an extensive interview with the novelist about truth and consequences, an interview that turned out to be Bolaño’s last. Appearing for the first time in English, Bolaño’s final interview is accompanied by a collection of conversations with reporters stationed throughout Latin America, providing a rich context for the work of the writer who, according to essayist Marcela Valdes, is “a T.S. Eliot or Virginia Woolf of Latin American letters.” As in all of Bolaño’s work, there is also wide-ranging discussion of the author’s many literary influences. (Explanatory notes on authors and titles that may be unfamiliar to English-language readers are included here.) The interviews, all of which were completed during the writing of the gigantic 2666, also address Bolaño’s deepest personal concerns, from his domestic life and two young children to the realities of a fatal disease.

It is September 1968 and the Mexican student movement is about to run head-on into the repressive right-wing government of Mexico: hundreds of young people will soon die. When the army invades the university, one woman hides in a fourth-floor ladies' room and for twelve days she is the only person left on campus. Staring at the floor, she recounts her bohemian life among the young poets of Mexico City—inventing and reinventing freely—and along the way she creates a cosmology of literature. As they grow ever more hallucinatory, her "memories" become mythologies before completely transforming into riveting dark prophecies. Hair-raising and enthralling, Amulet is a heart-breaking novel and another brilliant example of the art of Roberto Bolaño, 'the most admired novelist,' as Susan Sontag noted, 'in the Spanish-speaking world.'

During the course of a single night, Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, a Chilean priest, who is a member of Opus Dei, a literary critic and a mediocre poet, relives some of the crucial events of his life.

Featuring several mass-murdering authors, two fraternal writers at the head of a football-hooligan ring and a poet who crafts his lines in the air with sky writing, Nazi Literature in the Americas details the lives of a rich cast of characters from one of the most extraordinarily fecund imaginations in world literature. Written with acerbic wit and virtuosic flair, this encyclopaedic cavalcade of fictional pan-American authors is the terrifyingly humourous and remarkably inventive masterpiece which made Bolaño famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Follows Amalfitano, exiled Chilean university professor and widower with a teenage daughter, as his political disillusionment and love of poetry lead to the scandal that will force him to flee from Barcelona and take him to Santa Teresa, Mexico. It is here, in this border town, that Amalfitano meets Arcimboldi, a magician and writer whose work highlights the provisional and fragile nature of literature and life.

Found in the author's archive and published for the first time: a collection of three novellas - a joy for the many fans and followers of Roberto Bolano.

When Nuria Martí, the beautiful Spanish figure skater, is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old mansion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is that he paid for it using embezzled public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene... Rife with political corruption, sex, jealousy and frustrated passion, The Skating Rink - narrated in turn by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous local entrepreneur - is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives.

From a master of contemporary fiction, a tale of bohemian youth on the make in Mexico City Two 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--or sacrifice themselves to it. Roberto Bolaño's The Spirit of Science Fiction is a story of youth hungry for revolution, notoriety, and sexual adventure, as they work to construct a reality out of the fragments of their dreams. 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 and dreams of cosmonauts and Nazis. Meanwhile, Remo runs headfirst into the future, spending his days and nights with a circle of wild young writers, seeking pleasure in the city's labyrinthine streets, rundown cafés, and murky bathhouses. This kaleidoscopic work of strange and tender beauty is a fitting introduction for readers uninitiated into the thrills of Roberto Bolaño's fiction, and an indispensable addition to an ecstatic and transgressive body of work.

Shortly after becoming the German war-games champion, Udo Berger and his girlfriend, Ingeborg, holiday on the Costa Brava. There they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, and a band of shady locals who introduce them to the darker side of life in the town. Then, late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udoâe(tm)s well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval . . . Frightened, Udo refuses to leave, even after Ingeborg returns home, and his increasingly feverish dreams push him into delirium. As everything slips beyond his grasp, he attempts to re-assert himself by engaging the enigmatic and severely disfigured El Quemado âe" a foreigner who lives in a Spartan burrow on the beach âe" in a days-long match of his favourite war game, Third Reich. But, too late to stop the madness, he realizes that the consequences of this game are much more serious than he ever imagined. Combining the exhilaration of The Savage Detectives with the darkness of his later work, The Third Reich âe" Bolañoâe(tm)s first new novel since the epic 2666 âe" is a visceral book exploring memory, madness and violence. It is both the perfect way to discover the dazzling genius of Roberto Bolaño and an unmissable addition to the oeuvre for those who already have.

Roberto Bolano, in Chile geboren, in Mexiko aufgewachsen, in Spanien zu literarischem Weltruhm gelangt und früh gestorben, ist so etwas wie der Fliegende Holländer Lateinamerikas: Wie wenige hat er das Exil kennengelernt - und sich dazu unsentimentale Gedanken gemacht. Sie bilden den roten Faden dieser Fragmente zur Autobiographie eines Umhergetriebenen. Das Lied vom traurigen Latino, der im kalten Exil die warme Heimat besingt (wo Mord und Totschlag herrschen) hat dieser Autor nie mitgesungen. Bolano ist sein Leben lang durch die Welt gereist, gezwungen, freiwillig, immer aber mit äußerster Intensität. In diesen Artikeln, Essays und Reisebildern kann man nachlesen, wie krumm die Wege waren, auf denen er zum Herold der lateinamerikanischen Gegenwartsliteratur wurde.

»Ein einzigartiger Erzähler der Weltliteratur.« Ijoma Mangold in der Süddeutschen ZeitungSei es eine Parodie auf die korrupte Preisvergabe im Literaturbetrieb, ein meisterhaft arrangierter Dialog zwischen zwei Polizisten, die sich als die ranghöchsten Schlächter der chilenischen Militärdiktatur entpuppen, oder die hinreißende Liebesgeschichte zwischen einer Hochspringerin und dem Gehilfen eines russischen Gangsterbosses: Der Kampf um Geld, Erfolg oder Sex hält Bolaños Figuren auf Trab. In diesen 14 traurigen und zugleich schrecklich komischen Geschichten entführt uns der große Erneuerer der lateinamerikanischen Literatur in die Labyrinthe des Lebens - entlang der Grenze zwischen Fiktion und Realität.

Für Roberto Bolaño, den illusionslosesten und letzten Romantiker des 20. Jahrhunderts, war Dichtung seine wahre Berufung und die eigentliche Quelle aller Literatur. Seine Gedichte sind visionär und surreal, aberwitzig und melancholisch. Sie sind ein Loblied und zugleich ein Abgesang auf jene Generation der „romantischen Hunde“, die die Welt verändern wollte und unter die Räder kam: „Wenn wir genau hinhörten, könnten wir hören, wie die Türen der Geschichte zufallen / oder die Türen des Schicksals.“ Diese erste deutsche Gesamtausgabe von Bolaños Gedichten ist ein Ereignis für alle, die den Traum der Poesie weiterträumen.

Las mujeres son putas asesinas, Max, son monos ateridos de frío que contemplan el horizonte desde un árbol enfermo, son princesas que te buscan en la oscuridad, llorando, indagando las palabras que nunca podrán decir. En el equívoco vivimos y planeamos nuestros ciclos de vida, dice el personaje (¿una asesina?, ¿una puta?, ¿ambas cosas?) del cuento que da título a este libro. En Últimos atardeceres en la tierra se narra un viaje a Acapulco que se convierte paulatinamente en un descenso a los infiernos. En Dentista se cuenta la historia de un adolescente misterioso y dos adultos, ya de vuelta de todo, que lo observan desde el precipicio. En Buba se cuenta una historia de fútbol en tres partes. la de un futbolista sudamericano, la de un futbolista africano y la de uno español, y la sorprendente historia de su equipo, que bien podría ser el Barcelona.

Roberto Bolaños persönlichste Schriften »Vielleicht will ich sagen, dass Reisen, Sexualität und Bücher Wege sind, die nirgendwohin führen. Und trotzdem sollte man sich auf diese Wege begeben, sich in sie verlaufen, um sich wiederzufinden oder - wenn man Glück hat - das Neue zu finden, das es schon immer gab.« Der große chilenische Erzähler blickt in fünf Erzählungen und zwei Essays auf das Wesentliche, Literatur und Leben immer nahtlos ineinander verwoben. Der Erbe Borges‘ auf der Höhe seines literarischen Könnens.

Der letzte Roman, den Roberto Bolano vor seinem Tod in Spanien schrieb, gehört zu seinen vollendetsten Werken. Voller Melancholie und Finsternis, ist er eine brillante Satire auf unsere von Trash und Gewalt dominierte Kultur der Gegenwart. Schauplatz ist Rom, wo sich Bianca und ihr Bruder mit den schäbigsten Jobs durchschlagen. Ihre Freizeit verbringen sie mit Pornofilmen und Quizshows - bis eines Tages der Plan reift, den Tresor von Maciste zu knacken, einem erblindeten Bodybuilder und B-Star aus den fünfziger Jahren. Um den Safe auszukundschaften, gibt sich Bianca Nacht für Nacht dem glatzköpfigen Muskelprotz hin. Doch als das Verbrechen vergeblich scheint, dreht sie schließlich den Spieß um. Die erste Auflage des Buches erscheint wieder in bibliophiler Ausstattung.

In »Monsieur Pain« vereint Roberto Bolaño das Beste von Borges mit Poe – ein halluzinatorisches Meisterwerk Im Frühling 1938 wird Monsieur Pain, ein Akupunkteur und Anhänger des Magnetismus in ein Pariser Krankenhaus gerufen. Er soll den peruanischen Dichter César Vallejo von einem rätselhaften Schluckauf heilen. Doch noch bevor er helfen kann, sieht sich Pain in eine komplexe Intrige verwickelt. Wer ist dieser Südamerikaner, der dort im Krankenhaus vor sich hinstirbt? Und warum wünschen sich einige dunkle Kräfte seinen Tod? Allein Pain erkennt, was sich hinter den Kulissen abspielt. Dabei ist er gar kein Held, sondern ein ganz gewöhnlicher Mann: alleinstehend, heimlich verliebt und offensichtlich auserwählt, sich mit diesem mysteriösen Fall auseinanderzusetzen. »Frühe Prosa aus dem Nachlass des Chilenen, schon mit allen Finessen des Spätwerks.« DIE ZEIT