Woes of the True Policeman: A Novel

by Roberto Bolaño, Natasha Wimmer (Translator)

Overview

Author of The Savage Detectives and 2666

Crushed by a devastating scandal, university professor Óscar Amalfitano flees Barcelona for Santa Teresa—a Mexican city close to the U.S. border, where women are being killed in staggering numbers. There, Amalfitano begins an affair with Castillo, a young forger of Larry Rivers paintings, while his daughter, Rosa, reeling from the weight of his secrets, seeks solace in a romance of her own. Yet when she finds her father in bed with Castillo, Rosa is confronted with the full force of her crisis.

What follows is an intimate police investigation of Amalfitano, leading to a finale of euphoria and heartbreak. Featuring characters and stories from The Savage Detectives and 2666, Roberto Bolaño's Woes of the True Policeman mines the depths of art, memory, and desire—and marks the culmination of one of the great careers of world literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250037824
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	10/22/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	773,050
Product dimensions:	5.74(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealist poetry movement. He is the author of The Third Reich, The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, and 2666, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty.

Editorial Reviews

The most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation.” —The New York Times Book Review

“One of our greatest writers...Latin American letters (wherever it may reside) has never had a greater, more disturbing avenging angel than Bolaño.” —Junot Díaz, The New York Times Book Review

“The writing never feels stale but, rather incredibly, shines anew....The publication of a Bolaño novel, complete or not, is never anything less than an event of language and devilish wit.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Bolaño's voice demands attention.” —The New Yorker

“Bolaño [seems] to come from an understanding that people are portholes; that a creation can represent singular space that otherwise would go unknown....He allows the novel to vibrate through its box.” —Vice

“Indelible Bolaño...[Woes of the True Policeman] may offer insight into the writer's larger project.” —Los Angeles Times

“Full of delights...like watching a master magician unpacking his bag of tricks.” —The New Orleans Times-Picayune

From the Publisher

National Book Critics Circle Award winner Bolaño isn't just a literary phenomenon but a popular phenomenon, his mammoth 2666 having sold over 70,000 copies in hardcover, 36,000 in a boxed set, and 40,000 in paperback. So there will be interest in this final, unfinished novel, which Bolaño began in the 1980s and worked on until his death in 2003. Here, widowed Chilean professor Amalfitano is forced from Barcelona by scandal and lands in Santa Teresa, Mexico.

Library Journal