Now last year when I read my first two Bolano books I knew I d started a wonderful journey with a truly unique writer ,Bolano grew up in Chile but then became a traveler of the world spending time in Mexico and eventually settling in Spain with a wife and Children ,his life has already become the stuff of myth so what is real and what has been elaborated on his hard to say so at least to say he died age 55 from liver problems ,He wrote a few time and mention in interviews his love of Jorge Luis Borges

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 the argentine master of the surreal now this book is an homage to the master ,the book consists of a number of short chapters ,then sub grouped in to groups each describing a different imagined writer with ultra right leaning ,this serve as as a perfect vehicle for describing the latin american history of the times ,and also the influx of people escaping the second world war and their influence on the literature of the second half of the 20th century ,we start with writer that have been directly involved with the german nazi party ,either promoting them in south america or going and fighting alongside the germans in germany and being feted for doing so  Then people post war that still want to keep alive the dreams of aryan nations ,through the upheavals and revolutions of the 60 and 70s with figure like Pinochet and Peron lingering in the background ,the skins culture of california is also touch on ,and latterly the link between football hooligans and the right-wing politics much echo in europe by books like the football factory and its ilk ,Bolano fills out the books these people have written just enough to make them seem real enough ,like Borges Bolano uses real events and imagined characters to weave the turbulent history of latin america and also latin american and european relations during this time .Theis book although a few years old still feels current there is a recent news story in peru about a character in tv program shows that racism and right-wing attitudes are still prevalent in latin america .Bolano was often at odds with writers of his own generation feeling they we re to influenced by the boom generation of Marquez and the other latin american boom writers  and not enough by Borges and the earlier generation of latin american writers ,this book is testament to what he said ,although not as acknowledge as 2666 or savage detectives it is maybe the best representation of what Bolano liked to read and the writers that influenced him .

winstons score –

like a anteater you get to digest this book in small chunks ,also Bolano ripped apart modern latin american lit like a anteater with a ant hill .