Roberto Bolano's Fiction

Since the publication of The Savage Detectives in 2007, the work of Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) has achieved critical and popular acclaim rarely enjoyed by contemporary literature in translation. Chris Andrews, a critic and scholar who has translated many of Bolano's works into English, explores the singular achievements of the author's oeuvre and incorporates his novels and stories into the larger history of Latin American and global literary fiction. He provides new readings and interpretations of 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile and explores aspects of Bolano's fictional universe and the political, ethical, and aesthetic values that shape it. In Andrews's lucid and innovative readings, Bolano emerges as the inventor of a prodigiously effective "fiction-making system," a subtle handler of suspense, a chronicler of aimlessness, a celebrator of courage, an anatomist of evil, and a proponent of youthful openness.