No Image
$13.95

By Night in Chile

Brand: New Directions
Current Stock:
UPC: 9780811215473
Gift Wrapping: Gift Wrapping Available
Author: Roberto Bolano
Out of stock
  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: New Directions (December 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0811215474
  • ISBN-13: 978-0811215473
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches

As through a crack in the wall, By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of Church and State in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel―Roberto Bolano's first work available in English―recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet, but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and a conservative literary critic, a sort of lap dog to the rich and powerful cultural elite, in whose villas he encounters Pablo Neruda and Ernst Junger. Father Urrutia is offered a tour of Europe by agents of Opus Dei (to study "the disintegration of the churches," a journey into realms of the surreal); and ensnared by this plum, he is next assigned―after the destruction of Allende―the secret, never-to-be-disclosed job of teaching Pinochet, at night, all about Marxism, so the junta generals can know their enemy. Soon, searingly, his memories go from bad to worse. Heart-stopping and hypnotic, By Night in Chile marks the American debut of an astonishing writer.

Review

Bolano was unanimously declared to be the most important novelist of his generation by a meeting of Latin American writers. (The Nation, Marcela Valdes)

About the Author

Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed “by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time” (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times),” and as “the real thing and the rarest” (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50.

Related Products