BOOKS 2666
By Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Farrar, Straus & Giroux $30, 898 pages
To be published by Picador in January in the UK
When Roberto Bolaño died in 2003, aged 50, he was unknown in the English-speaking world. Five years on, the Chilean, who turned to fiction only in his 40s, is being canonised by critics as the first great writer of this century. When 2666 came out in the US last month, fans queued outside bookshops to get their hands on a copy. For many, the book’s lustre was increased by the sense that its creation had been fatal: Bolaño, who suffered from liver disease for his final decade, apparently turned down the offer of a transplant to concentrate on completing this 900-page behemoth.
