Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño
Picador, £16.99
Roberto Bolaño was no stranger to the darker side of life. He arrived in Mexico, aged 15, in 1968; the year protesters were massacred in Tlatelolco. When he returned to his native Chile in 1973, he was briefly imprisoned during the Pinochet coup against President Allende. He met the guerrilla-poet Roque Danton in El Salvador who was later murdered by his own comrades. In the 1980s, Bolaño was down and out in Spain and, some believe, taking heroin. It was only after he met his Spanish wife and had two children that Bolaño finally settled down, abandoning poetry for prose. Sadly, he died in 2003, aged only 50, while waiting for a liver transplant.
Violence and cruelty permeates much of his work and the suggestion that writers and intellectuals can easily become ensnared in the brutal world of authoritarian regimes, be bought or are in some way complicit in their ruthlessness is a recurring theme in his fiction. But this idea is neatly encapsulated in his blackly humorous guide to imaginary fascist writers and “dictators of taste”.
Nazi Literature in the Americas has, at its heart, a terrifying vision of a dominant culture peopled by individuals who have embraced extreme right-wing ideologies. Bolaño has amassed a chilling array of biographies to create an informal association of artists, united by their locale, in the Americas, and an inclination towards fascism.
There are cross references between characters and Bolaño’s own books. The final and most memorable creation, Lt Carlos Ramírez Hoffman, one of Pinochet’s henchmen, was the central character in his novella Distant Star. A poet by day and a killer by night, he exhibits photographs of torture and uses the smoke from an air force plane to inscribe his poetry on the sky. Some biographies are related with a straight face; others are more obvious parodies, such as the “highly successful” science-fiction writer Zach Sodenstern (born Los Angeles 1962, died Los Angeles 2021), whose Gunther O’Connell saga includes “dialogues between O’Connell and his dog Flip plus various secondary episodes of extreme violence in a ruined Los Angeles.”
While aspects may be lost on those unacquainted with the finer nuances of Latin America’s literary world, there is plenty to savour. Bolaño is meticulous in his detail and merciless in his judgements. Chris Andrews’ engaging translation is the best evidence yet of the caustic wit for which Bolaño became renowned in his short but prolific career.
Lucy Popescu
