Between Parentheses

Starred review from May 16, 2011
Containing literary criticism, notes about friends and acquaintances and beloved geographical locations, as well as speeches and prologues, this stellar collection of Bolaño's non-fiction creates, as Echevarría states in his introduction, "a kind of fragmented âautobiography.'" Bolaño discusses many of the major Spanish language writers of his time, including Argentineans Roberto Arlt and Osvaldo Lamborghini and fellow Chilean Nicanor Parra, among many, many others (wonderfully ranging widely, from Thomas Harris to Philip K. Dick). Bolaño provides remarkable insight on his own writing, noting "everything that I've written is a love letter or a farewell letter to my own generation." His advice to other writers is equally eloquent; "literature," he states, "has nothing to do with national prizes and everything to do with a strange rain of blood, sweat, semen, and tears." The depictions of the places he's lived and visited are evocative and provide depth and detail into his "fragmented" life (particularly when he describes the Catalonian town of Blanes and his withdrawl from heroin on the beach). This is exciting writing from a cherished writer. Wimmer won the National Book Critic Circle's âBest Novel of the Year' award for her translation of the author's 2666.

June 1, 2011
Chilean writer Bolao's conquest of English-language readers culminated in his posthumously winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for his volcanic novel 2666 (2008). Stoked on Bolao's fiction and poetry, his avid readers will gratefully embrace this peppery collection of nonfiction written during the last five years of his too-brief life. As editor Echevarria notes, this gathering of essays, articles, speeches, and possibly the last interview Bolao gave, published in Mexico the day he died, comprises a fragmented autobiography.' Indeed, the collection begins with the succinct Self-Portrait, which ends with the piquant line: I'm much happier reading than writing. Ceaselessly imaginative and zealous, however self-deprecating, Bolao writes warmly and incisively about the work of diverse writers, most often those of Latin America, but also Burroughs, Turgenev, Swift, Cormac McCarthy, and Walter Mosely. Bolao frolics in pithy essays on friendship, women, ancestors, and courage. He's irreverent and purposeful, cerebral and casual, insouciantly opinionated and ironic, and charming and funny. A profound writer of conscience, Bolao never forgets crimes of oppression, the infiniteness of suffering, or the dead.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)