Paradais City
The Chilean poet and novelist Roberto Bolaño passed away in 2003, but his specter still haunts the literary world. Bolaño, a singular Latin American genius beloved by the literati, left a massive vacuum after his untimely death, and publishers have been trying to fill it ever since. This has been a great boon to Spanish-language authors whose work was plucked from the provincial world of Latin American letters and now reaches a wide readership in translation. The search for Bolaño’s literary heir has also been a blessing for American readers, as brilliant contenders such as Valeria Luiselli and César Aira are now published by major American presses, adding some much-needed spice to year-end reading lists.
