Publishers Weekly stands to lose its authoritative ring when it rips into “Antwerp” (New Directions) by Roberto Bolaño, a novel not yet in Albuquerque bookstores (wait ‘til May) but very much under
discussion at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and Instituto Cervantes in Albuquerque. The translation from Spanish was done by Natasha Wimmer. Her translation of Bolano’s “2666” won the National Book Award’s Best Novel of the Year as well as the PEN Prize (Roberto Bolaño).
Here’s part of the Publishers Weekly complaint: “The dead and wildly fashionable Bolaño (2666) seems doomed to have all of his scribblings published. Hence this slapdash collation of 56 cinematic gestures set in 1980 Barcelona . . snippets of speech, errant impressions, and sensations. Collectively, these might be viewed as the paranoid, manic musings of a writer desperately searching for material.”
Amazon thoughtfully notes that from this springboard—which Bolaño chose to publish in 2002, 20 years after he’d written it — as if testing out a high dive, he would plunge into the unexplored depths of the modern novel.
“Antwerp” reminds readers of the loss to contemporary literature that might have occurred had Scribner not included seven previously unpublished stories in “The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway” (Scribner). The early works of writers can foretell much. As Bolaño’s friend and literary executor, Ignacio Echevarría, once suggested, “Antwerp” can be viewed as the 'Big Bang' of Roberto Bolaño’s fictional universe. Reading this novel, the reader is present at the birth of Bolaño’s enterprise in prose: all the elements are here highly compressed, at the moment when his talent explodes.
Amazon tells readers that among Bolaño’s 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.
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EXAMINER’S BEST: How to write your 1st novel NM Fiction Awards Thomas Pynchon
Carlos Fuentes José Saramago Roberto Bolaño John Hawkes
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