Description: "A novel following a priest and a literary critic through Chile's 1973 coup d'etat and consequent military dictatorship"--
Brief description: Chris Andrews has translated books of prose fiction by César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, Liliana Colanzi, and Ágota Kristóf, among others. He is also the author of How to Do Things with Forms and The Oblong Plot.
Review Quotes:
"Bolaño's most searing monologue."
--Daniel Zalewski, The New Yorker
"Never less than mesmerizing . . . [Bolaño] displays a remarkable knack for storytelling, his talent overshadowed only by his courageous tenacity in plumbing the unthinkable."
--Marc Cooper, Los Angeles Times
--John Powers, NPR's Fresh Air "Dark and glittering . . . Written with unsettling art."
--Richard Eder, The New York Times "Is there really anything in print even remotely approaching By Night in Chile? . . . [A] master class in which Bolaño manages to distill the perverse brutal phantasmagorical history of an entire continent down to 150 seductive pages . . . Latin American letters (wherever it may reside) has never had a greater, more disturbing avenging angel than Bolaño."
--Junot Díaz, The New York Times Book Review "A wonderful and beautifully written book by a writer who has an enviable control over every beat, every change of tempo, every image . . . [A novel of] real moral and intellectual bite."
--Ben Richards, The Guardian "Incisive . . . A fitting epitaph for all the many walking ghosts of Latin America's past and present."
--Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, The Washington Post "Haunting . . . Bolaño's is a mesmeric storytelling gift in the vein of Borges."
--Ian Thomson, The Observer (London) "[One of] his masterpieces."
--Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review "[An] arresting historical novel . . . Darkly comic . . . Chilling."
--Kate Levin, The Nation "Aria-like . . . [It spins] out, unimpeded, in extended Whitmanic exhalations."
--Wayne Koestenbaum, Bookforum "Regarded by many as Bolaño's greatest."
--Benjamin Kunkel, London Review of Books "Perfect."
--Wyatt Mason, Harper's Magazine "One long, masterfully sinuous paragraph punctuated by a one-sentence finale . . . Bolaño's febrile narrative tack and occasional surreal touches bring to mind the classics of Latin American magic realism; his cerebral protagonist and nonfiction borrowings are reminiscent of Thomas Bernhard and W. G. Sebald."
--Mark Kamine, The New York Times Book Review "A teasing mosaic of dreams, parables, memories and literary allusions . . . Deadly earnest, foreboding, and yet joyfully whimsical . . . A wonderful introduction to Bolaño's work."
--The Times (London)