Bolano: A Biography in Conversations

The first biography of Chilean novelist Roberto Bola±o, the author of the international bestsellers The Savage Detectives and 2666

How to know the man behind works of fiction so prone to extravagance? In the first biography of Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bola±o, journalist M³nica Maristain tracks Bola±o from his childhood in Chile to his youth in Mexico and his early infatuation with literature, to years of tremendous literary productivity in Spain, and to his untimely death and the posthumous and unprecedented stardom that came with the international publication of his novels The Savage Detectives and 2666.

Bola±o: A Biography in Conversations is assembled from a series of rich interviews with the people who knew Bola±o best: we meet Bola±o's first publisher, who printed 225 copies of his first book of poetry; are introduced to his parents and an array of childhood friends, who watched a precocious young man turn into an obsessive writer who barely left the house; and witness the birth of Bola±o's famed Infrarealist literary movement. The book also sheds new light on aspects of Bola±o's life taht have long been shrouded in mystery: for the first time, we learn the details of his final illness and the drama of his final days.

Throughout the book, Maristain present an image far removed from the stereotypes that have been created over the years, with the aim of reintroducing the man whose works grabbed readers worldwide. Maristain writes as a journalist and admirer, impressed with the power of Bola±o€s prose and the cool irony with which he faced the literary world.