Description

With an afterword by Natasha Wimmer.

Winner of the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize. Natasha Wimmer’s translation of The Savage Detectives was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2007 by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

New Year’s Eve 1975, Mexico City. Two hunted men leave town in a hurry, on the desert-bound trail of a vanished poet.

Spanning two decades and crossing continents, theirs is a remarkable quest through a darkening universe – our own. It is a journey told and shared by a generation of lovers, rebels and readers, whose testimonies are woven together into one of the most dazzling Latin American novels of the twentieth century.

Publisher Review

"An utterly unique achievement--a modern epic rich in character and event. . . . [He is] the most important writer to emerge from Latin America since Garcia Marquez."--"San Francisco"" Chronicle""" "My favorite writer . . . "The Savage Detectives "is an ark bearing all the strange salvage of poetry and youth from catastrophes past and those yet to come."--Nicole Krauss, author of "The History ""of Love" ""The Savage Detectives" is deeply satisfying. . . . Bolano's book throws down a great, clunking, formal gauntlet to his readers' conventional expectations. . . . A very good novel."--Thomas McGonigle, "Los Angeles"" Times" "One of the most respected and influential writers of [his] generation . . . At once funny and vaguely, pervasively, frightening."--John Banville, "The Nation" "A bizarre and mesmerizing novel . . . It's a lustful story--lust for sex, lust for self, lust for the written word."--"Esquire" "Roberto Bolano's masterwork, at last translated into English, confirms this Chilean's status as Latin America's literary enfant terrible."--"Vogue" "Combustible . . . A glittering, tumbling diamond of a book . . . When you are done with this book, you will believe there is no engine more powerful than the human voice."--Emily Carter Roiphe, "Star Tribune "(Minneapolis)"" "An exuberantly sprawling, politically charged picaresque novel."--"Elle""" "Wildly enjoyable . . . Bolano beautifully manages to keep his comedy and his pathos in the same family.""--The New York Times Book Review"