Nazi Literature in the Americas
Roberto Bolaño
Language: English
Pages: 280
ISBN: 0811217051
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A playful and entirely original novel masquerading as a mini-encyclopedia of nonexistent Nazi literature in our hemisphere by Roberto Bolano: "his generation's premier Latin-American writer" (The New York Times).
A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Composed of short biographies about imaginary writers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Columbia, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the USA, Nazi Literature in the Americas includes descriptions of the writers' works, cross references, a bibliography, and also an epilogue ("For Monsters"). All the writers are carefully and credibly situated in real literary worlds. There are fourteen thematic sections with titles such as "Forerunners and Figures of the Anti-Enlightenment," "Magicians, Mercenaries and Miserable Individuals," and "North American Poets."
Brisk and pseudo-academic, Nazi Literature in the Americas delicately balances irony and pathos. Bolano does not simply use his writers for target practice: in the space of a few pages he manages to sketch character portraits that are often pathetically funny, sometimes surprisingly moving, and, on occasion, authentically chilling. A remarkably inventive, funny, and disquieting sui generis novel, Nazi Literature in the Americas offers a clear view into the workings of one of the most extraordinarily fecund literary imaginations of our time.
time for niceties and beat her almost every day. He used to put her down in public, and held her family in contempt, referring to them, in conversations with friends and strangers, as “a bunch of Cristero assholes . . . good for nothing except target practice.” Real life can sometimes bear an unsettling resemblance to nightmares. In 1937 the couple traveled to Spain. Barreda went to save the Republic, Irma to save her marriage. In Madrid, while Franco’s air support bombed the city, in room 304
refused to grow up (José Segundo Heredia once described him as “Venezuela’s best schoolboy poet”). The photos show a tall young man with blond hair, the body of an athlete, and the gaze of a killer or a dreamer or both. He published two books of poetry. The first, Motorists (1965), was a series of twenty-five sonnets, rather unorthodox in their rhythm and form, dealing with subjects dear to the young: motorcycles, doomed love, sexual awakening and the will to purity. The second, The War
achieve his aim: through violence, which was out of the question, since he was peaceable and timorous by nature, appalled by the mere sight of blood; or through literature, which is a surreptitious form of violence, a passport to respectability, and can, in certain young and sensitive nations, disguise the social climber’s origins. He opted for literature and decided to spare himself the difficult years of apprenticeship. His first poems, published in the Monitor’s cultural supplement, were
the vicinity of Boca’s Bombonera stadium on match days. This time the sportswriters paid him some attention: two magazines deemed The Path to Glory worthy of a review, and when Dr. Pestalozzi’s radio program 100% Soccer organized a round table on the critical state of the national game, Schiaffino was invited to participate. On the radio, in the company of well-known sports personalities, he was restrained. In 1975 he delivered his next collection of poetry to the printer. Entitled Like Wild
it was flying over the center of Concepción. There, high above the city, the plane began to write a poem in the sky. Letters of grey smoke against the rose-tinged blue of the sky, chilling the eyes of those who saw them. YOUTH . . . YOUTH, I read. I had the impression—the mad certitude—that they were printer’s proofs. Then the plane swung around and flew towards us, before turning again to make another pass. This time the line was much longer and must have required great expertise on the pilot’s