The Savage Detectives
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. 1st US Edition. Octavo, publisher’s ivory cloth, spine stamped in black, original illustrated dust jacket.
"Life left us all where we were meant to be or where it was convenient to leave us and then forgot us, which is as it should be." First US edition of Roberto Bolaño’s breakthrough book, which tells the story of a circle of radical Mexican poets. Bolaño was a Chilean novelist, poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose electrifying political life has made him a figure of global fascination. In 1973, he left Mexico, where he had been living, to support Salvador Allende's democratic socialist government in Chile, but was imprisoned there for eight days following Pinochet’s military coup. Though he considered himself a poet, he began writing more fiction in his early forties out of financial necessity, and his first novel to be published in English – By Night In Chile – was released by New Directions in 2003 to critical acclaim from Susan Sontag. Bolaño died the same year, at the age of 50. Originally published in Spain in 1998, The Savage Detectives is considered the book that established Bolaño's international stature. First printing, with complete number row to copyright page. Light rubbing to spine-ends of book and unclipped dust jacket. Near fine. Item #6738
$75.00