The first book of his I ever read was The Savage Detectives, which I think is actually not the best starting point for getting to know Roberto Bolaño. The book is highly ambitious spanning years and countries chronicling the story of a generation of poets. It is one of Bolaño’s best books, but I can understand how a lot of people can get turned off by the complexities of the novel. It is a big one, after all.
Still, I picked up The Savage Detectives at the end of 2016 and finished it in early January 2017. I was still attending my MFA program and was set to graduate in December 2017. I was only 24 years old and incredibly ambitious, an attitude that has ebbed and flowed in the years that followed. I had hardly heard of Bolaño when I chose to pick up his book, though I remember seeing a hardcover copy of 2666 when in a bookstore years ago as an undergrad. Either way, I decided to give The Savage Detectives a chance. And I’m glad I did.
There’s a question I tend to ask other writers and artists: who is your go-to artist for inspiration? That is to say, whenever you need to feel inspired or reminded of your love for your art, who can do that for you?
For me, that is Roberto Bolaño. Since reading The Savage Detectives, I have slowly devoured his oeuvre. I have read his short stories in Last Evenings on Earth and The Return. I have read his shorter novels such as Distant Star and By Night in Chile. I managed to get through 2666. And I read the entirety of his poetry in The Unknown University (which I can no longer seem to find in print). There are still some writing of his that I need to get to. I haven't read everything yet. But I’m purposely taking my time with him. There’s magic to his words—dare I say poetry. I want that magic to last as long as it can.
April 28, 2023, will mark Bolaño’s 70th birthday. He died at the age of 50 due to liver failure on July 15th, 2003. He was working on 2666 by the time of his death and had famously asked for it to be published in separate parts to secure more financial stability for his family, though the idea was overturned by his heirs. I read 2666 at the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns. I had been working nonstop when the world decided to stop. I had time now, and I was anxious for a million reasons. I picked up the novel hesitantly and felt the same inspiration as I did when I picked up The Savage Detectives years prior as a grad student. Reading his final magnum opus reminded me of how soon the world lost Bolaño.
It was a little difficult for me to learn about Bolaño the man. He has no official biography, though we can gather a bit about his life given testimony and interviews he gave. He was born in Chile and later lived in Mexico. He lived as a bit of a bohemian in Mexico as a poet. When he started a family, he decided to write prose to be more financially secure. He ultimately moved to Spain, where he lived for the rest of his life until succumbing to his illness in 2003. Though there are some more details about him, he mostly remains a mystery. I think I remember reading how someone tried to write a biography about him and just found him “boring.” I can see that. Like a true poet, he lets his writing do the work in representing him.
I find it just and suitable that I would write this tribute to Bolaño in April, which is National Poetry Month. Bolaño considered himself primarily a poet. Despite switching to fiction, he never stopped calling himself a poet, and it shows within his fiction. He writes about poetry all the time. His fiction is littered with poets. The Savage Detectives itself was about a generation of poets. Though he received more success through his prose, he never let go of his poetic roots, considering poetry the ultimate form of writing.
And I tend to agree. I love writing fiction. I love writing nonfiction. And I’ve gotten more and more into screenwriting. But even though I have come to love and appreciate those forms of writing, it is clear when a poet decides to write a story. While novelists and screenwriters are masters of the craft of storytelling, poets are masters of language and the written word. Something incredible happens whenever a poet writes any form of prose. There’s—once again that word—magic occurring on the page. You can tell as soon as you’re there. You’re in the hands of a master of language, the hands of a poet.
It’s hard to describe what inspires me about Bolaño. I write nothing like him. I tried when I was younger, that moment of admiration that borders on stylistic plagiarism. We don’t ever write the same genres. I struggle with short stories whereas he was a master. He wrote crime novels and neo-noir while I write silly romantic comedies and coming-of-age novels. I write feature film screenplays whereas he never once touched the writing form—who knows what he thought of the screenwriting. The two of us are not necessarily opposites. But we are different enough to claim individual identities.
And yet, I am immensely drawn to him. I didn’t personally wish to become a writer until I learned about the Latin American Boom as a junior in high school. My very first short story was a project assignment in a Spanish Literature class and I was inspired to write similar to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Until I met Bolaño, he was my literary idol, and One Hundred Years of Solitude was the novel I could only dream to reach.
And then came Roberto Bolaño. I was attending my MFA program. I picked up The Savage Detectives and immediately fell in love. On the surface, the novel is about two quixotic poets in search of the founder of their poetry movement. But it’s really the story of a generation of poets, the lives they lead on their own as the movement disperses, what becomes of their movement, and how it all slowly dies in a world that doesn’t appear to want them. Distant Star is about the protagonist learning of a friend’s descent into darkness. By Night in Chile—possibly the novel that has made the biggest impression on me—has to do with a priest reckoning with having given classes to Pinochet and burying his head in the sand among political turmoil. My favorite story in Last Evenings on Earth, called “Sensini,” is about two poets becoming pen pals until the older poet stops responding and the younger has to continue his life without him.
And then there’s 2666. The Washington Post was right when claiming Bolaño “joined the immortals” with this book. It was clearly incomplete having died before finishing it. But all the themes from his previous works were there. There were writers. There was Mexico. There was a lot of crime—a whole chunk of the book is just fictional police reports. And always the same sense of death and darkness. Initially about four academics searching for an elusive writer, the novel ultimately centers on the femicides in a fictional town called Santa Teresa and a large cast of characters surrounding the murders. It’s hard to describe the nature of the book without delving so much deeper than I will here. But it saddens me that this was where Bolaño’s career had to end. I can only imagine how the book could have been improved had Bolaño lived longer.
Which is why I set out to write this Substack post. We lost him too soon. He shouldn’t have “joined the immortals” at the age of 50. He should have turned 70 today. But such is the nature of death. It doesn’t discriminate. It is more universal than life. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives. And Roberto Bolaño died at the age of 50 on July 15th, 2003.
So this post is just my selfish way of paying tribute to a master of fiction, essays, and always poetry. It doesn’t matter how bad my creative slump can get—just reaching for one of his books revives the writer in me again. And I’ll probably be reaching for one of his books again soon.
Happy Birthday, Roberto Bolaño. You would have been 70 today.
Until next time! Keep writing!