Synopses & Reviews
"The melancholy folklore of exile," as Roberto Bolano once put it, pervades these fourteen haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime. These protagonists tend to take detours and to narrate unresolved efforts. They are characters living in the margins, often coming to pieces, and sometimes, as in a nightmare, in constant flight from something horrid. 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 of have appeared in and .
Review
"I am addicted to the haze that floats above Bolaño's fiction." Wayne Kostenbaum
Review
"The most influential and admired novelist of his generation in the Spanish-speaking world." Bookforum
Review
"Just behind the nervy, deadpan narrative a total breakdown perpetually looms." Susan Sontag
Review
Brilliant.Widely known in the Spanish-speaking world as the premier writer of his generation.If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolaño yet, you will soon.Bolaño's characters yearn for amnesia as well as for the ability to connect to someone or something in the present. --Stephanie Hanson
Review
[B]leakly luminous stories...His generation's premier Latin-American writer... Bolaño's reputation and legend are in meteoric ascent. --Larry Rohter
Review
Conjures dreamlike worlds that shock with their familiarity. --Philip Herter
Review
Brilliant. --Andersen TepperVillage Voice
Review
Widely known in the Spanish-speaking world as the premier writer of his generation. --Kirkus Reviews
Review
If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolaño yet, you will soon. --Hartford Courant
Review
Bolaño's characters yearn for amnesia as well as for the ability to connect to someone or something in the present. --The New York Sun
Review
[B]leakly luminous stories... --Stephanie HansonLos Angeles Times
Review
His generation's premier Latin-American writer... Bolaño's reputation and legend are in meteoric ascent. --Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
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 Yorker and Grand Street.
Synopsis
Complex and provocative.
Synopsis
The first short-story collection in English by the acclaimed Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. Winner of a 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award.
About the Author
Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50.The poet Chris Andrews has translated many books by Roberto Bolaño and César Aira for New Directions.