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More on Bolano

July 9, 2009 by Steve Mentz Leave a Comment

Roberto Bolano continues to be my favorite not-all-that-new writer.  I’ve recently read *Amulet*, a great novella about the student uprisings in Mexico in 1973, and I’m currently working my way through a bilingual edition of *The Romantic Dogs*, the only book of his poems that’s appeared in English yet (I think).  (The cover has a great image of a dog on it, Bolano’s puns not being all that subtle.)

I like his manic energy more than anything — *Amulet* ostensibly takes place in a bathroom while the army occupies the university, but it’s also a portrait of Latin American literary culture in the 1970, and it moves in huge, crazy loops.

*Nazi Literature in America* is another good one, a novel in Borges-like portraits of imaginary right-wing writers from Argentina to California to Indiana.

The two master-works are *The Savage Detectives* and *2666*.

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About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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