Last Evenings on Earth [Import] [Hardcover]

Roberto Bolano (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvill Secker; 1st.British edition (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843431815
• ISBN-13: 978-1843431817
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,751,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his 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. Chris Andrews has won the TLS Valle Inclán Prize and the PEN Translation Prize for his Bolaño translations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Latin American Master, June 9, 2006

By 

Adrift in Suburbia (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Last Evenings on Earth (Hardcover)

Fourteen stories are included in this collection, by the author who died at age 50. He considered himself a poet primarily, and wrote fiction to support his family. The characters in "Last Evenings" invariably suffer early death by illness or suicide. Few, if any, of his characters achieve what Bolano calls the three highest goals of a man of letters: "fame, wealth and a large readership." Yet they toil away regardless, because they have no other choice. Bolano has a prose style utterly distinct from Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the other Latin American masters of the sixties, seventies and eighties. Bolano's style, in contrast, is flat and unornamented, like a police report; one can sense the influence of Jorge Luis Borges in Bolano's precision and clarity, and also an amalgamation of genre fiction writers of North America, like Phillip K. Dick and James Ellroy. Bolano melds these influences into something all his own, a sort of pan-Latin American voice, without any distinct national identity.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A loss for world literature, August 28, 2006

By 

G. Nordström (Hollviken, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Evenings on Earth (Hardcover)

When Chilean writer Roberto Bolano prematurely died at the age of 50 a few years ago it was a loss to world literature. By many considered as one of the most interesting of new latin american writers, Bolano in his lifetime published several novels and collections of short stories. Very little has, so far, been translated into english. For those interested in getting to know Bolanos work, Last Evenings on Earth offers an ideal starting point. These enigmatic, haunted stories will stay in your mind long after you've read them. So, while waiting for translations of Bolano masterpieces Los detectives salvajes, and 2666, allow yourself to be seduced by these magnificent short stories. Bolano novels distant Star and By Night in Chile are also available in english and are highly recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bolano's Meditations on Short-term friendships, August 19, 2008

By 

Juviebetfixer "X" (Turin, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Evenings on Earth (Paperback)

Sensini, the literary mentor in this collection's first story, warns Arturo Belano (the novelist's anti-mainstream alter-go) that "The little world of letters is terrible as well as ridiculous." Roberto Bolano's life story, with its sudden headhrush of fame and recognition, proves this point. Neglected for most of life, heralded as a supreme genius in his dying days, the fickle sensibilities of aestheticians are now claiming a son whom they, for so long, orphaned.

The positive effect of all this is that non-Spanish readers can now enjoy a wide selection of Bolano's writings. _The Savage Detectives_ has certainly now gotten its fair take . . . but what of Bolano's other writings, his short fiction, which also work with his technique of 'infrarealism': memoir combined surrealism, or something like that.

This collection, while perhaps not giving the fullest single view of Bolano's stylistics, none the less pleases throughout for many reasons. Far sparser, and far more restrained than 'The Savage Detectives', this book might be called 'ode to marginalia'. A recurrent figure is the unsuccessful writer, no doubt a reflection of Bolano's own years of rejection. Dark, witty, but always earnest, this collection provides character vignettes which do not depend on high phrases or intricate psychoanalysis for their texture. Bolano reveals tensions, contradictions, and regret through understatement, rather than exposure, and these stories thrill by disappointing . . . conclusions are never conclusive, and discoveries are never certain. The successive tales all float about in a fog of open-ended indecision, which is as charming as it is maddening. In doing so, Bolano brings a uniquely felt point of view to the ways in which people try, and fail, to ensure their own immortality.

This collection does not attempt the cosmological anarchy of '2666' or 'The Savage Detectives', but its brevity and incisions of calm fury make for very provocative reading. There's really not much like this to be found in English language writing.