Comments on: Short Stories by Roberto Bolaño

Short Stories by Roberto Bolaño

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:47:21 -0800

7 short stories by Roberto Bolaño Gómez Palacio, The Insufferable Gaucho, Álvaro Rousselot's Journey, Phone Calls, Dance Card. From Nazi Literature in the Americas: Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce, Luz Mendiluce Thompson & Ernesto Pérez Masón and The Fabulous Schiaffino Boys. If you know the fiction of Roberto Bolaño you know what you're in for. If you don't, any of these stories is a good place to start, though the first three are perhaps the most natural starting points.

One more story in audio form: A Literary Adventure [Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast] Poems: Self Portrait at Twenty Years and My Life in the Tubes of Survival. Interviews with his two main English language translators Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer. Biographical Essay on Bolaño by Wimmer. [pdf] Carmen Boullosa, a friend and contemporary of Bolaño's, describes the literary scene the young Bolaño participated in during the 70's. Paul Berman explains how Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives fits into the literary history of Latin America. [Bolaño previously on MetaFilter]

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:50:37 -0800

I was in the doldrums last summer and fall and I hadn't read a single book of fiction for almost three months when I happened to read The Insufferable Gaucho in The New Yorker and just had to read more by Bolaño. I blazed through Last Evenings on Earth in a couple of days and immediately went and got The Savage Detectives and read through that and then Amulet. So in some ways I owe Bolaño my reading life.

By: billysumday

billysumday — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:55:30 -0800

Love Bolaño. Anyone know when 2666 will be translated and released?

By: mekanic

mekanic — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:37:44 -0800

I don't have an exact date for 2666, but I'm 90% sure that it'll be out this fall.

By: shothotbot

shothotbot — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:40:15 -0800

2666 is supposed to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, nothing on the website as to when it will be released.

By: chupacabra

chupacabra — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:02:09 -0800

Kattullus: I have both The Savage Detectives and Amulet on my 'want to read list'. Do you recommend one over the other?

By: Mocata

Mocata — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:06:39 -0800

Great post.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:09:40 -0800

I recommend The Savage Detectives over Amulet. Amulet is a longer version of one of the chapters in The Savage Detectives.

By: steef

steef — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:18:45 -0800

Savage Detectives will finally be out in paperback in early March. I have been waiting patiently, patiently. (Thanks, Kattullus!)

By: cobra libre

cobra libre — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:34:24 -0800

Wow, thanks for this post. I recently read Last Evenings on Earth and Distant Star -- what haunting little books they are. I should be getting my copy of Nazi Literature in the Americas today, and I can't wait to read it.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:03:54 -0800

Bolaño's The Savage Detectives has been banned by the Texas jail system.