![\"Roberto](\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/im3\/bolano2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRoberto Bola\u00f1o<\/p>\n
\u00c1lvaro Rousselot\u2019s Journey<\/a> (New Yorker Fiction Nov 26, 2007 – my introduction to his work and I intend to read more.)<\/p>\n Vagabonds:Roberto Bola\u00f1o and his fractured masterpiece<\/a> by Daniel Zalewski from the New Yorker.<\/p>\n Bola\u00f1o began submitting short stories to state-sponsored contests around Spain; when a story won prize money, he would retitle it and submit it to another competition, which it would also win. (Similar mischief is detailed in his darkly witty story \u201cSensini.\u201d) When he was thirty-eight, Bola\u00f1o learned that his liver was severely compromised, and he began writing with unrelenting concentration; starting in 1996, he published one or more books a year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obit from Guardian<\/a> Chilean creator of ‘infrarealism’<\/p>\n Another one<\/a><\/p>\n Bola\u00f1o wasn’t shy about revealing that he lived a hard life in his wanderings. His nutrition, dental care, and smoking habit were bad enough that he lost nearly all his teeth on the way, and he joked he left them scattered throughout Latin America the same way Hansel and Gretel left a trail of bread crumbs in the forest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pagina Official <\/a> (Multimedia page in Spanish)<\/p>\n Comparison to Borges from here.<\/a><\/p>\n Another Borges and Bolano <\/a><\/p>\n Bolano on youtube<\/a> (Spanish only) Self Portrait at Twenty Years<\/a><\/p>\n I set off, I took up the march and never knew \u2014Roberto Bola\u00f1o
\nThis Spanish page has great Photos <\/a><\/p>\n
\n where it might take me. I went full of fear,
\n my stomach dropped, my head was buzzing:
\n I think it was the icy wind of the dead.
\n I don’t know. I set off, I thought it was a shame
\n to leave so soon, but at the same time
\n I heard that mysterious and convincing call.
\n You either listen or you don’t, and I listened
\n and almost burst out crying: a terrible sound,
\n born on the air and in the sea.
\n A sword and shield. And then,
\n despite the fear, I set off, I put my cheek
\n against death’s cheek.
\n And it was impossible to close my eyes and miss seeing
\n that strange spectacle, slow and strange,
\n though fixed in such a swift reality:
\n thousands of guys like me, baby-faced
\n or bearded, but Latin American, all of us,
\n brushing cheeks with death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n (translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy)<\/p>\n