Discovering Bolaño

In a recent copy of the New Yorker that made its way here to BA (thanks to Ian's mom), I stumbled upon a short story called The Insufferable Gaucho. It's the story of an honorable old lawyer from BA who ends up hunting rabbits in the pampas. I loved it: I laughed, I cried.

I'd never heard of the Chilean author, Roberto Bolaño (pic'd), so I went looking for his work at our local bookstore. There was much to choose from, but I figured I'd buy El Gaucho Insufrible to revisit the charming gaucho in his original language and sample the collection's other short stories. Ian and I are now fighting over the book. It's that good.

Roberto Bolaño died in 2003, so imagine my surprise to see one of his books included in the New York Times' "10 Best Books of the Year" today. I was looking for my friend Rebecca Barry's debut, Later, At the Bar, but Bolaño's The Savage Detective (recently translated into English) edged her out. It must be damned fine to beat Later...

The NYT review back in April of this year opened with these words: "Over the past few years, Bolaño's reputation, in English at least, has been spreading in a quiet contagion..." Too bad Bolaño isn't alive to enjoy this new wave of success.