Great news for most, but bad news for BolaƱo girlies who really like the new covers, have limited bookshelf space and have already gone all-in on a comprehensive collection of the New Directions paperbooks (cough me cough)
It's no secret that BolaƱo is one of my very favorite writers, and I'm a huge recommend on his work. He's a unique and strange writer who steeps his work in a kind of comic darkness. As a Chilean writer-in-exile who fled his home after Pinochet's coup, he's very interested in the lasting legacy of 20th century fascism and political violence, as well as the experience of exile and of writers themselves, and frequently plays with autofiction through the use of his literary alter-ego, Arturo Belano. He crafted a literary universe full of interconnected themes and recurring characters that make his body of work especially rich to visit as a whole.
This first round of reissues is dropping on September 3rd with three books: By Night in Chile, The Return, and Antwerp.
Of the three, By Night in Chile is the standout, a novella-length monologue by a Chilean priest and literary critic, who on his death bed sweatily justifies his actions during the Pinochet regime. It's an angry cry against the Chilean literary establishment's reaction to Pinochet and an exploration of the dangers of prizing aesthetics over political substance. It was the first BolaƱo published in America and served as a springboard for his reputation - the legendary Susan Sontag called it "the real thing...a contemporary novel destined to have a permanent place in World Literature"
The Return I'd say is more a piece for completionists. BolaƱo was a master of short fiction - Pankaj Mishra said his short stories "do the work of a novel" and I agree, the amount of thematic resonance he can pack into 10 to 30 pages is incredible. An earlier collection, Last Evenings on Earth (getting reissued in 2026), was pulled from two spanish-language collections, and The Return consists of the leftovers. It's good, but it's weaker than the other collection, feeling a bit more like the stranger, darker B-sides. Worth a read, but not essential.
Then there's Antwerp, one of BolaƱo's earliest novels but one not published until 2002. Some folks would stick this in the "completionists only" bucket but I loved it. A slim novella consisting of 56 short prose-poem chapters, it's strange and fragmentary and dreamlike in a way that feels in kinship with the more surrealist films of David Lynch.
Anyways once again - I love BolaƱo and am a huge recommend on his work. This feels like a great time for unfamiliar folks to start reading him!
