The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Distant Star, Roberto Bolaño

Distant Star

Roberto Bolaño

Reader Score

78%

78% of readers

recommend this book

The star of Roberto Bolaño's hair-raising novel Distant Star is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions.

For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime. The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolaño's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolaño's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel By Night in Chile as "a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.")

Many Chilean authors have written about the "bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders," Richard Eder commented in the The New York Times: "None has done it in so dark and glittering a fashion as Roberto Bolaño."

Book Details

  • Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
  • Publish Date: Dec 17th, 2004
  • Pages: 150
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.02in - 5.29in - 0.51in - 0.44lb
  • EAN: 9780811215862
  • Categories: PoliticalLiteraryClassics

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Mortals, Norman Rush
Book Cover for: Silence of the Chagos, Shenaz Patel
Book Cover for: Rich and Poor, Jacob Wren
Book Cover for: The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey
Book Cover for: Patriotism, Yukio Mishima
Book Cover for: Bricks and Mortar, Clemens Meyer
Book Cover for: The Novel, Nawal El Saadawi
Book Cover for: A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe
Book Cover for: The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey
Book Cover for: Death of a Man, Kay Boyle
Book Cover for: Once in a Promised Land, Laila Halaby
Book Cover for: Little Boys Come from the Stars, Emmanuel Dongala
Book Cover for: Clark Gifford's Body, Kenneth Fearing
Book Cover for: On Hurricane Island, Ellen Meeropol
Book Cover for: Tyrant Banderas, Ramon del Valle-Inclan

About the Author

Andrews, Chris: - The poet and translator Chris Andrews has won the Valle Inclan Prize and the French-American Translation Prize for his work.
Bolaño, Roberto: - Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50.

More books by Roberto Bolaño

Book Cover for: 2666, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: The Insufferable Gaucho, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: The Return, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Amulet, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: 2666 (Spanish Edition), Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Antwerp, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Monsieur Pain, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Los Detectives Salvajes / The Savage Detectives: Spanish-Language Edition of the Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Nocturno de Chile / By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Roberto Bolaño: Cuentos Completos / Complete Stories, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas, Roberto Bolaño
Book Cover for: The Romantic Dogs: Poems, Roberto Bolaño

Praise for this book

The most influential and admired novelist of his generation in the Spanish-speaking world.--Susan Sontag "Times Literary Supplement"
Bolaño's spare prose lends his narrator's account a chilly precision.-- "The New Yorker"
[Distant Star is a] true masterpiece that will remain one of the key readings of contemporary literature-- "Vanguardia"