Woes of the True Policeman

(Paperback)

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Description

A major, retrospective launch of Roberto Bolano's work - now published as a Vintage Classics author for the first time. When Oscar Amalfitano begins an affair with one of his students, he has no idea where it will lead. More than his turbulent revolutionary past, or the death of his beautiful wife, the scandalous exposure of this relationship will change him for ever. Forced to flee Barcelona with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Amalfitano finds himself in Santa Teresa, a sprawling, mythical town on the Mexico-US border, populated by mysterious characters and haunted by dark tales of murdered women. Returning to the the world and characters of 2666, Bolano's masterpiece, Woes of the True Policeman explores the the power of art, memory and desire - and marks a kaleidoscopic, lyrical and darkly humorous last act in one of the great oeuvres of world literature. TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER 'Hallucinatory, manic, fearful, comic... Bolano must be read by anyone who loves the novel' Herald 'We savour all he has written as every offering is a portal into the elaborate terrain of his genius' Patti Smith

Reviews

The most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation. * The New York Times Book Review *
Bolao's voice demands attention. * The New Yorker *
Its no exaggeration to call Bolao a genius * Washington Post *
Bolao makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world * Guardian *
An event of language and devilish wit * Wall Street Journal *

Author Bio

Roberto Bolano was born in Santiago, Chile in 1953 and died in Catalonia in 2003. He was widely regarded as the essential Latin American writer of our age. He was best known for his novels (including The Savage Detectives, which won a number of prestigious literary awards, Nocturno de Chile, translated as By Night in Chile, and 2666, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award) and his short stories, first published in English in Last Evenings on Earth.