Five books by Roberto Bolaño, Latin American writer

In the list of the 100 best books of the 21st century from the American newspaper “The New York Times”, Roberto Bolaño had two mentions (The Savage Detectives and 2666).

He is the Latin American writer with the most works within this select group, which were selected through a survey of more than 500 writers, poets and critics.
Who was Roberto Bolaño?

Roberto Bolaño, born on April 28, 1953 in Santiago de Chile and died on July 14, 2003 in Barcelona, was a Chilean writer and poet, recognized as one of the most influential voices in contemporary literature in the Spanish language. His work covered various genres, including poetry, novels and essays.

In the 1970s he founded the infrarealist movement together with the poet Mario Santiago Papasquiaro, in Mexico, which marked his first literary explorations.

Throughout his career, he published several novels that left a mark on literature, including Los detectives salvajes (1998), which earned him the Premio Herralde de Novela, 2666 (2004), his posthumous work, and Estrella lejano (1996).

Although his production was relatively brief due to his premature death, the intensity and depth of his work have ensured him a preeminent place in world literature.

These are some of his most recognized books that keep him in the taste of contemporary readers.
1. Los detectives salvajes (1998)

It narrates the search for Cesárea Tinajero, a writer who disappeared in Mexico in the years after the Revolution.

The plot follows Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, two young poets known as the “savage detectives,” who for 20 years (from 1976 to 1996) embark on a journey full of love, death, disappearances, and a series of encounters and disagreements through different countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, the United States, France, Spain, Israel, and more.

Throughout the novel, the protagonists meet peculiar and diverse characters, such as a Spanish photographer on the verge of despair, a neo-Nazi, a retired Mexican bullfighter, a teenage prostitute, among others.

These characters offer a panoramic view of life, art, and literature of the time.

The work can be read as a literary thriller full of humor and reflection, and stands out for its fragmented structure and unique style.

According to the Spanish critic Ignacio Echevarría, it is “an original and beautiful book,” while the writer Enrique Vila-Matas describes it as “a crack that opens gaps through which new literary currents of the next millennium will circulate.”
2. 2666 (2004)

Roberto Bolaño intertwines the stories of four literature professors who, united by their fascination with the German writer Beno von Archimboldi, embark on a trip to Santa Teresa, a border town in Mexico, in search of clues about him.

What begins as an intellectual game turns into a tragedy when they discover that the city is the scene of atrocious crimes against women, which serves as a gateway to a profound reflection on violence, literature and the history of the 20th century.

The novel is an intricate labyrinth of overlapping stories, taking the reader on a journey through Europe, the ruins of civilization and the tensions of a world in crisis. Critics have praised its ambitious structure and its ability to fuse various literary genres.

According to the American writer and critic Susan Sontag, Bolaño establishes himself as “the most influential and admired Spanish-language novelist of his generation.”

For his part, the Argentine writer Rodrigo Fresán comments: “The result is magnificent. What is pursued and achieved here is the total novel, which places the author of 2666 in the same team as Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Proust, Musil and Pynchon.”
3. Telephone Calls (1997)

Roberto Bolaño presents us with open, unpredictable stories, where what lies beyond the story is the true enigma.

Each narrative weaves a complex plot in which reality and fiction intertwine, creating figures that must be discovered.

In one of the stories, Sensini, an exiled South American writer, teaches a young author the tricks of provincial literary prizes, evoking the shadow of authors such as Onetti and Moyano. In another, Joanna Silvestri, a former diva of porn cinema, recalls her relationship with Jack, a character who reminds us of a real actor in this circuit.

The characters are intertwined in stories of uprooting, identity and passion, for example “El Gusano”, a gunman in Mexico, speaks all the indigenous languages and fascinates a young man disillusioned with conventional life; or William Burns, an American who finds himself trapped in a story of triangular relationships and mistaken murders.

Bolaño's work maintains a constant dialogue with humor and wit, as Chilean literary critic Patricia Espinosa noted in La Época de Chile: “Roberto Bolaño suddenly becomes one of the best Chilean narrators.”
4. Distant Star (1996)

The narrator remembers having seen a man for the first time in 1971 or 1972, when Salvador Allende was still president of Chile.

This man, who called himself Ruiz-Tagle, moved cautiously through the literary workshops of the University of Concepción, writing distant poems and seducing women, while awakening an inexplicable distrust in men.

After the Coup, the narrator met him again, but at that time he still did not know that the aviator Wieder, a soldier who wrote Bible verses from an airplane, and Ruiz-Tagle, the disturbing poet, were the same person.

These verses were read in stadiums, where prisoners listened to them, while the poets he had seduced, such as the Garmendia sisters, disappeared.

The story that unfolds is that of a man of many names, an impostor whose only purpose was aesthetics. A dandy of horror, a murderer and photographer of fear, who took his art to its ultimate and fatal consequences.
5. Nazi Literature in America (1996)

This work is, according to Bolaño himself, a “vaguely encyclopedic anthology of pro-Nazi literature produced in America from 1930 to 2010.”

In it, the writer creates an ingenious work that, through fictitious reviews of invented authors, parodies the history of Ibero-American literature.

The book imitates literary dictionaries, but instead of real authors, it presents extremist, racist, and fanatical figures, all associated with fascism.

According to the Spanish literary critic, J. A. Masoliver Ródenas, the work shows a brilliant ability to create characters and situations, mixing culture, humor and imagination.
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