By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolao

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolao

"Extraordinary . . . [Bolaño's] greatest work." --James Wood, The New York Times Book Review

"A marvelous river of feeling, a brilliant meditation, an enthralling fantasy--By Night in Chile is the real thing, and the rarest: a contemporary novel destined to have a permanent place in world literature." --Susan Sontag

The book that catapulted Roberto Bolaño into international literary stardom, By Night in Chile is the final testimony of Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix--Chilean priest and member of Opus Dei, eminent literary critic and failed poet--as he is haunted by a shadowy figure from his past. In Urrutia's feverish last hours, a deluge of memories pours from him: of hobnobbing with Santiago's most unctuous literati; of undertaking a mission to save Europe's decaying cathedrals from existential threat by pigeon excrement; of retreating into Greco-Roman poetry during the darkest chapter of modern Chilean history; of tutoring Augusto Pinochet in Marxist theory, so that the General may better understand his enemies. Throughout he insists, with fracturing conviction, that he was always on the right side of history. A novel about high art and fascism, silence and complicity, and, ultimately, the weight of damnation, Roberto Bolaño's By Night in Chile is a deep-cutting satire and a work of devastating moral insight.

With a new introduction by Nicole Krauss.

Roberto Bolao (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and resided in Mexico, France, and Spain later in his life. He has been praised as the most interesting writer to emerge from south of the Rio Grande in a long time (Los Angeles Times) and as the real deal and the rarest (Susan Sontag). The famous Premio Herralde de Novela and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos are among his many awards. He is usually regarded as the generation's greatest Latin American writer. The Romantic Dogs, 2666, The Spirit of Science Fiction, By Night in Chile, Distant Star, Last Evenings on Earth, and The Savage Detectives are among his works.