ROBERTO BOLANO was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the infrarealist poetry movement. His first full-length novel, "The Savage Detectives," received the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998. Bolano died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty. NATASHA WIMMER 's translation of "The Savage Detectives "was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2007 by "The Washington Post "and "The New York Times."
"Bolano's masterwork . . . An often shockingly raunchy and violent
tour de force (though the phrase seems hardly adequate to describe
the novel's narrative velocity, polyphonic range, inventiveness,
and bravery) based in part on the still unsolved murders of
hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, in the Sonora desert near the
Texas border." --FRANCISCO GOLDMAN, "The New York Review of Books "
"Not just the great Spanish-language novel of [this] decade, but
one of the cornerstones that define an entire literature." --J. A.
MASOLIVER RODENAS, "La Vanguardia " "One of those strange,
exquisite, and astonishing experiences that literature offers us
only once in a very long time . . . to see . . . a writer in full
pursuit of the Total Novel, one that not only completes his life's
work but redefines it and raises it to new dizzying heights."
--RODRIGO FRESAN, "El Pais """ "Bolano's savoir-faire is incredible
... The exploded narrative reveals a virtuosity that we rarely
encounter, and one cannot help being bowled over by certain bravura
passages--to single one out, the series of reports describing
murdered young women, which is both magnificent and unbearable. We
won't even mention the 'resolution' of this infernal 2666, a world
of a novel in which the power of words triumphs over savagery."
--Baptiste Liger, L'EXPRESS"Splendid ... The jaw-dropping synthesis
of a brief but incredibly fertile career." --Fabrice Gabriel, LES
INROCKUPTIBLES"The event of the spring: with 2666 Roberto Bolano
has given us his most dense, complex, and powerful novel, a
meditation on literature and evil that begins with a sordid
newspaper item in contemporary Mexico." --Morgan Boedec, CHRONIC
ART"Including the imaginary and the mythic alongside the real in
his historiography, without ever dabbling in the magical realism
dear to many of his Latin-American peers, Bolano strews his
chronicle with dreams and visions. As in the films of David Lynch
(with whom Bolano's novel shares a certain kinship) these become a
catalyst for reflection ... In such darkness, one must keep one's
eyes wide open. Bolano invites us to do just that." --Sabine
Audrerie, LA CROIX"An immense moment for literature ... With
prodigious skill and his inimitable art of digression, Bolano leads
us to the gates of his own hell. May he burn in peace."
--TECHNIKART"Bolano constructs a chaos that has an order all its
own ... The state of the world today transmuted into literature."
--Isabelle Ruf, LE TEMPS"To confront the reader with the horror of
the contemporary world was Bolano's guiding ambition. He succeeded,
to say the least. Upset, shocked, sometimes even sickened, at times
one is tempted to shut the book because it's unbearable to read.
Don't shut it. Far from being a blood-and-guts thriller meant to
entertain, 2666 is a 'visceral realist" portrait of the human
condition in the twenty-first century." --Anna Topaloff, MARIANNE
"On every page the reader marvels, hypnotized, at the capacity of
this baroque writer to encompass all literary genres in a single
fascinating, enigmatic story. No doubt many readers will find 2666
inexhaustible to interpretation. It is a fully realized work by a
pure genius at the height of his powers." --LIRE "His masterpiece
... Bolano borrows from vaudeville and the campus novel, from noir
and pulp, from science fiction, from the Bildungsroman, from war
novels; the tone of his writing oscillates between humor and total
darkness, between the simplicity of a fairytale and the false
neutrality of a police report." --Minh Tran Huy, LE MAGAZINE
LITTERAIRE (Paris)"The book explores evil with irony, without any
theory or resolution, relying on storytelling alone as its saving
grace... Each story is an adventure: a fresco at once horrifying,
delicate, grotesque, redundant, and absurd, revealed by the
flashlight of a child who stands at the threshold of a cave he will
never leave." --Philippe Lancon, LIBERATION"If THE SAVAGE
DETECTIVES recounted the end of a century of avant-gardes and
ideological battles, 2666, more radically, evokes the end of
humanity as we know it. Apocalyptic in this sense, wavering between
decomposition and totality, endlessly in love with people and
books, Bolano's last novel ranges over the world and history like
the knight Percival, who in Bolano's words 'wears his fool's motley
underneath his armor.'" --Fabienne Dumontet, LE MONDE DES LIVRES
(Paris)"A work of genius: a work of immense lucidity and narrative
cunning, written with a unique mixture of creative power and
intimate existential desperation, the work of a master whose voice
has all the authority and seeming effortlessness that we associate
with the great classics of the ages ... It is impossible to read
this book without feeling the earth shift beneath one's feet. It is
impossible to venture deep into writing so unforgiving without
feeling inwardly moved--by a shudder of fear, maybe even horror,
but also by its need to pay attention, by its desire for clarity,
by its hunger for the real." --Andres Ibanaz, BLANCO Y
NEGRO"Without a doubt the greatest of Bolano's productions ... The
five parts of this masterwork can be read separately, as five
isolated novels; none loses any of its brilliance, but what's lost
is the grandeur that they achieve in combination, the grandeur of a
project truly rare in fiction nowadays, one that can be enjoyed
only in its totality." --Ana Maria Moix, EL PAIS"Make no mistake,
2666 is a work of huge importance ... a complex literary
experience, in which the author seeks to set down his nightmares
while he feels time running out. Bolano inspires passion, even when
his material, his era, and his volume seem overwhelming. This could
only be published in a single volume, and it can only be read as
one." --EL MUNDO"An absolute masterpiece ... Bolano writes almost
without adjectives, but in his prose this leads to double meanings.
The narration is pure metonymy: it omits feelings in favor of
facts. A phone call or a sex act can express real tragedy, the
sweep of the vast human condition." --Andres Lomena, LA OPINION DE
MALAGA "" " "
“Bolaño’s masterwork . . . An often shockingly raunchy and violent
tour de force (though the phrase seems hardly adequate to describe
the novel’s narrative velocity, polyphonic range, inventiveness,
and bravery) based in part on the still unsolved murders of
hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, in the Sonora desert near the
Texas border.” —FRANCISCO GOLDMAN, "The New York Review of Books
" “Not just the great Spanish-language novel of [this] decade,
but one of the cornerstones that define an entire literature.” —J.
A. MASOLIVER RÓDENAS, "La Vanguardia " “One of those strange,
exquisite, and astonishing experiences that literature offers us
only once in a very long time . . . to see . . . a writer in full
pursuit of the Total Novel, one that not only completes his life’s
work but redefines it and raises it to new dizzying heights.”
—RODRIGO FRESÁN, "El País """ "Bolano's sav
"Not just the great Spanish-language novel of this decade, but one
of the cornerstones that define an entire literature. [Bolano] has
revived an idea that the postmoderns seemed to have abandoned: the
totalizing novel, one that aspires to create a complete narrative
universe. This idea goes back to the dawn of the modernists, to
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and ULYSSES, and in Latin American
literature finds its crucial expression in the Boom ... 2666 is a
magisterial and inimitable novel, in which reality takes on a
strange air of unreality thanks to situational oddities and
absurdities, hairpin turns of language, dreams, sustained
questioning, vague associations, changing landscapes. A novel
rising like a delirious mirage in the void." --J.A. Masoliver
Rodenas, LA VANGUARDIA
"A work of genius: a work of immense lucidity and narrative
cunning, written with a unique mixture of creative power and
intimate existential desperation, the work of a master whose voice
has all the authority and seeming effortlessness that we associate
with the great classics of the ages ... It is impossible to read
this book without feeling the earth shift beneath one's feet. It is
impossible to venture deep into writing so unforgiving without
feeling inwardly moved--by a shudder of fear, maybe even horror,
but also by its need to pay attention, by its desire for clarity,
by its hunger for the real." --Andres Ibanaz, BLANCO Y NEGRO
"Without a doubt the greatest of Bolano's productions ... The five
parts of this masterwork can be read separately, as five isolated
novels; none loses any of its brilliance, but what's lost is the
grandeur that they achieve in combination, the grandeur of a
project trulyrare in fiction nowadays, one that can be enjoyed only
in its totality." --Ana Maria Moix, EL PAIS
"Make no mistake, 2666 is a work of huge importance ... a complex
literary experience, in which the author seeks to set down his
nightmares while he feels time running out. Bolano inspires
passion, even when his material, his era, and his volume seem
overwhelming. This could only be published in a single volume, and
it can only be read as one." --EL MUNDO
"One of those strange, exquisite, and astonishing experiences that
literature offers us only once in a very long time. What 2666
promises and achieves ... is the sight, equally wonderful and
upsetting, of a writer in full pursuit of the Total Novel, one that
not only completes his life's work but, at the same time, redefines
it and raises it to new vertiginous heights ... 2666 could be
described as a "cosmic novel" because--as with the universe--the
crucial and amazing thing is not that it's unfinished, but that it
has no end." --Rodrigo Fresan, EL PAIS
"An absolute masterpiece ... Bolano writes almost without
adjectives, but in his prose this leads to double meanings. The
narration is pure metonymy: it omits feelings in favor of facts. A
phone call or a sex act can express real tragedy, the sweep of the
vast human condition." --Andres Lomena, LA OPINION DE MALAGA
"Bolano's masterwork . . . An often shockingly raunchy and violent tour de force (though the phrase seems hardly adequate to describe the novel's narrative velocity, polyphonic range, inventiveness, and bravery) based in part on the still unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, in the Sonora desert near the Texas border." --FRANCISCO GOLDMAN, "The New York Review of Books " "Not just the great Spanish-language novel of [this] decade, but one of the cornerstones that define an entire literature." --J. A. MASOLIVER RODENAS, "La Vanguardia " "One of those strange, exquisite, and astonishing experiences that literature offers us only once in a very long time . . . to see . . . a writer in full pursuit of the Total Novel, one that not only completes his life's work but redefines it and raises it to new dizzying heights." --RODRIGO FRESAN, "El Pais """
"Bolano's savoir-faire is incredible ... The exploded narrative reveals a virtuosity that we rarely encounter, and one cannot help being bowled over by certain bravura passages--to single one out, the series of reports describing murdered young women, which is both magnificent and unbearable. We won't even mention the 'resolution' of this infernal 2666, a world of a novel in which the power of words triumphs over savagery." --Baptiste Liger, L'EXPRESS"Splendid ... The jaw-dropping synthesis of a brief but incredibly fertile career." --Fabrice Gabriel, LES INROCKUPTIBLES"The event of the spring: with 2666 Roberto Bolano has given us his most dense, complex, and powerful novel, a meditation on literature and evil that begins with a sordid newspaper item in contemporary Mexico." --Morgan Boedec, CHRONIC ART"Including the imaginary and the mythic alongside the real in his historiography, without ever dabbling in the magical realism dear to many of his Latin-American peers, Bolano strews his chronicle with dreams and visions. As in the films of David Lynch (with whom Bolano's novel shares a certain kinship) these become a catalyst for reflection ... In such darkness, one must keep one's eyes wide open. Bolano invites us to do just that." --Sabine Audrerie, LA CROIX"An immense moment for literature ... With prodigious skill and his inimitable art of digression, Bolano leads us to the gates of his own hell. May he burn in peace." --TECHNIKART"Bolano constructs a chaos that has an order all its own ... The state of the world today transmuted into literature." --Isabelle Ruf, LE TEMPS"To confront the reader with the horror of the contemporary world was Bolano's guiding ambition. He succeeded, to say the least. Upset, shocked, sometimes even sickened, at times one is tempted to shut the book because it's unbearable to read. Don't shut it. Far from being a blood-and-guts thriller meant to entertain, 2666 is a 'visceral realist" portrait of the human condition in the twenty-first century." --Anna Topaloff, MARIANNE "On every page the reader marvels, hypnotized, at the capacity of this baroque writer to encompass all literary genres in a single fascinating, enigmatic story. No doubt many readers will find 2666 inexhaustible to interpretation. It is a fully realized work by a pure genius at the height of his powers." --LIRE "His masterpiece ... Bolano borrows from vaudeville and the campus novel, from noir and pulp, from science fiction, from the Bildungsroman, from war novels; the tone of his writing oscillates between humor and total darkness, between the simplicity of a fairytale and the false neutrality of a police report." --Minh Tran Huy, LE MAGAZINE LITTERAIRE (Paris)"The book explores evil with irony, without any theory or resolution, relying on storytelling alone as its saving grace... Each story is an adventure: a fresco at once horrifying, delicate, grotesque, redundant, and absurd, revealed by the flashlight of a child who stands at the threshold of a cave he will never leave." --Philippe Lancon, LIBERATION"If THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES recounted the end of a century of avant-gardes and ideological battles, 2666, more radically, evokes the end of humanity as we know it. Apocalyptic in this sense, wavering between decomposition and totality, endlessly in love with people and books, Bolano's last novel ranges over the world and history like the knight Percival, who in Bolano's words 'wears his fool's motley underneath his armor.'" --Fabienne Dumontet, LE MONDE DES LIVRES (Paris)"A work of genius: a work of immense lucidity and narrative cunning, written with a unique mixture of creative power and intimate existential desperation, the work of a master whose voice has all the authority and seeming effortlessness that we associate with the great classics of the ages ... It is impossible to read this book without feeling the earth shift beneath one's feet. It is impossible to venture deep into writing so unforgiving without feeling inwardly moved--by a shudder of fear, maybe even horror, but also by its need to pay attention, by its desire for clarity, by its hunger for the real." --Andres Ibanaz, BLANCO Y NEGRO"Without a doubt the greatest of Bolano's productions ... The five parts of this masterwork can be read separately, as five isolated novels; none loses any of its brilliance, but what's lost is the grandeur that they achieve in combination, the grandeur of a project truly rare in fiction nowadays, one that can be enjoyed only in its totality." --Ana Maria Moix, EL PAIS"Make no mistake, 2666 is a work of huge importance ... a complex literary experience, in which the author seeks to set down his nightmares while he feels time running out. Bolano inspires passion, even when his material, his era, and his volume seem overwhelming. This could only be published in a single volume, and it can only be read as one." --EL MUNDO"An absolute masterpiece ... Bolano writes almost without adjectives, but in his prose this leads to double meanings. The narration is pure metonymy: it omits feelings in favor of facts. A phone call or a sex act can express real tragedy, the sweep of the vast human condition." --Andres Lomena, LA OPINION DE MALAGA "" " "
"Bolano's sav
"A work of genius: a work of immense lucidity and narrative
cunning, written with a unique mixture of creative power and
intimate existential desperation, the work of a master whose voice
has all the authority and seeming effortlessness that we associate
with the great classics of the ages ... It is impossible to read
this book without feeling the earth shift beneath one's feet. It is
impossible to venture deep into writing so unforgiving without
feeling inwardly moved--by a shudder of fear, maybe even horror,
but also by its need to pay attention, by its desire for clarity,
by its hunger for the real." --Andres Ibanaz, BLANCO Y NEGRO
"Without a doubt the greatest of Bolano's productions ... The five
parts of this masterwork can be read separately, as five isolated
novels; none loses any of its brilliance, but what's lost is the
grandeur that they achieve in combination, the grandeur of a
project trulyrare in fiction nowadays, one that can be enjoyed only
in its totality." --Ana Maria Moix, EL PAIS
"Make no mistake, 2666 is a work of huge importance ... a complex
literary experience, in which the author seeks to set down his
nightmares while he feels time running out. Bolano inspires
passion, even when his material, his era, and his volume seem
overwhelming. This could only be published in a single volume, and
it can only be read as one." --EL MUNDO
"One of those strange, exquisite, and astonishing experiences that
literature offers us only once in a very long time. What 2666
promises and achieves ... is the sight, equally wonderful and
upsetting, of a writer in full pursuit of the Total Novel, one that
not only completes his life's work but, at the same time, redefines
it and raises it to new vertiginous heights ... 2666 could be
described as a "cosmic novel" because--as with the universe--the
crucial and amazing thing is not that it's unfinished, but that it
has no end." --Rodrigo Fresan, EL PAIS
"An absolute masterpiece ... Bolano writes almost without
adjectives, but in his prose this leads to double meanings. The
narration is pure metonymy: it omits feelings in favor of facts. A
phone call or a sex act can express real tragedy, the sweep of the
vast human condition." --Andres Lomena, LA OPINION DE
MALAGA
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