Three fiercely original tales. An unexpected treasure from the vault of a revolutionary talent.
Roberto Bolaño's boundless gift for shaping the chaos of reality into fiction is unmistakable across these three novellas. In ‘Cowboy Graves,’ Arturo Belano – Bolaño's alter ego – returns to Chile after the coup to fight with his comrades for socialism. ‘French Comedy of Horrors’ finds a seventeen-year-old recruited into a secret society of artists in the sewers of Paris. And in ‘Fatherland,’ a young poet reckons with the fascist overthrow of his country, as the woman he is obsessed with disappears in the ensuing violence.
TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER
‘His work is as vital, thrilling and life-enhancing as anything in modern fiction’ Sunday Times
‘Fascinating... A rare opportunity for the reader to witness the creation of a seemingly inexhaustible body of work’ El Pais
The Savage Detectives may have made Bolaño’s name, but his posthumous publications―from the galactic 2666 to the winsome Spirit of Science Fiction―have cemented his legend. He left behind a vault to rival Prince’s 'Paisley Park'. . . . The effect of Cowboy Graves is less the piecing together of a puzzle than the recentering of a whole, mythic world. ― The New York Times Book Review
Companionable, exotic, witty and glamorously suggestive. ― The Guardian
“Bolaño readers can survey [Cowboy Graves] to glimpse into his artistic process, into the fountain of his creativity. . . . One of Bolaño’s great narrative skills is his ability to casually express the enigma of life, the lacuna between humanity’s capacity for comprehension and the world’s unknowable. . . . His writing is global and encyclopedic, curative and addictive, and vibrant and visceral. ― Los Angeles Review of Books
Cowboy Graves contains writing completed over a period of 10 years, and features many of the touchstones Bolaño was known for: semi-autobiographical narration; a humorous, fragmentary style; and the sort of intrigue that grabs hold of you and never lets go, despite offering no easy answers. ― Chicago Review of Books
Bolaño's brilliant oeuvre expands with another bright starburst, this one comprising three separate yet thematically connected novellas...Bolaño's inimitable style and searing vision will appeal to fans and new readers alike. ― Booklist
About the Author
Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile in 1953 and died in Catalonia in 2003. He was widely regarded as the essential Latin American writer of our age. He was best known for his novels (including The Savage Detectives, which won a number of prestigious literary awards, Nocturno de Chile, translated as By Night in Chile, and 2666, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award) and his short stories, first published in English in Last Evenings on Earth.
