Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe
Since the publication of The Savage Detectives in 2007, the work of Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) has achieved an acclaim rarely enjoyed by literature in translation. Chris Andrews, a leading translator of Bolaño's work into English, explores the singular achievements of the author's oeuvre, engaging with its distinct style and key thematic concerns, incorporating his novels and stories into the larger history of Latin American and global literary fiction.

Andrews provides new readings and interpretations of Bolaño's novels, including 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile, while at the same time examining the ideas and narrative strategies that unify his work. He begins with a consideration of the reception of Bolaño's fiction in English translation, examining the reasons behind its popularity. Subsequent chapters explore aspects of Bolaño's fictional universe and the political, ethical, and aesthetic values that shape it. Bolaño 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. Written in a clear and engaging style, Roberto Bolano's Fiction offers an invaluable understanding of one of the most important authors of the last thirty years.
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Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe
Since the publication of The Savage Detectives in 2007, the work of Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) has achieved an acclaim rarely enjoyed by literature in translation. Chris Andrews, a leading translator of Bolaño's work into English, explores the singular achievements of the author's oeuvre, engaging with its distinct style and key thematic concerns, incorporating his novels and stories into the larger history of Latin American and global literary fiction.

Andrews provides new readings and interpretations of Bolaño's novels, including 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile, while at the same time examining the ideas and narrative strategies that unify his work. He begins with a consideration of the reception of Bolaño's fiction in English translation, examining the reasons behind its popularity. Subsequent chapters explore aspects of Bolaño's fictional universe and the political, ethical, and aesthetic values that shape it. Bolaño 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. Written in a clear and engaging style, Roberto Bolano's Fiction offers an invaluable understanding of one of the most important authors of the last thirty years.
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Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe

Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe

by Chris Andrews
Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe

Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe

by Chris Andrews

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Overview

Since the publication of The Savage Detectives in 2007, the work of Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) has achieved an acclaim rarely enjoyed by literature in translation. Chris Andrews, a leading translator of Bolaño's work into English, explores the singular achievements of the author's oeuvre, engaging with its distinct style and key thematic concerns, incorporating his novels and stories into the larger history of Latin American and global literary fiction.

Andrews provides new readings and interpretations of Bolaño's novels, including 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile, while at the same time examining the ideas and narrative strategies that unify his work. He begins with a consideration of the reception of Bolaño's fiction in English translation, examining the reasons behind its popularity. Subsequent chapters explore aspects of Bolaño's fictional universe and the political, ethical, and aesthetic values that shape it. Bolaño 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. Written in a clear and engaging style, Roberto Bolano's Fiction offers an invaluable understanding of one of the most important authors of the last thirty years.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231168076
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 12/15/2015
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Chris Andrews teaches at Western Sydney University, where he is a member of the Writing and Society Research Center. He has translated ten books by Roberto Bolaño. His book Lime Green Chair won the 2011 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
Note on Translations
1. The Anomalous Case of Roberto Bolaño
2. Bolaño's Fiction-Making System
3. Something Is Going to Happen: Narrative Tension
4. Aimlessness
5. Duels and Brawls: Borges and Bolaño
6. Evil Agencies
7. A Sense of What Matters
Appendix: Victims in "The Part About the Crimes" (2666) and Huesos en el desierto
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Ignacio López-Vicuña

Roberto Bolaño's Fiction is an engaging, original, and thoroughly successful attempt to interpret Roberto Bolaño's entire corpus of fiction. The questions Chris Andrews raises about ethics and the relationship of literature to life are timely and should appeal to a range of readers.

Siddhartha Deb

An amazing introduction to an amazing writer, touching upon all that makes Roberto Bolaño great: the romantic anarchism of his politics, the playfulness of his fiction, and the obsession with evil.

Esther Allen

This book is a rare thing: a work of literary criticism that exhibits the very qualities it praises in the texts it analyzes. Chris Andrews's writing, like Roberto Bolaño's, expands horizons, opens up remarkable possibilities, sings like an angel, makes new and unexpected connections, quietly understates its immense erudition, and offers a ride through a 'utopia of unending narration' that is thrillingly free of obfuscation, lip service, sanctimony, grandiosity, and boredom.

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