Roberto Bolaño, Nocturno de Chile [By Night in Chile]

Ignacio Lopez-Vicuna (University of Vermont)

Ed. by Ben Bollig, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

Spain (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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In a way,

Nocturno de Chile

(

By Night in Chile

, 2000) could be seen as Roberto Bolaño’s answer to the country he encountered when he returned to Chile after an absence of over two decades. An international celebrity after the success of

Los detectives salvajes

(

The Savage Detectives

, 1998), Bolaño visited Chile in 1998 and 1999, serving as a judge in a literary contest, giving interviews, appearing on television, and meeting local writers. His harsh judgments and sarcastic attitude towards the local milieu soon earned him many detractors, however.

Nocturno de Chile

condenses Bolaño’s pessimistic view of post-Pinochet Chile and his indictment of the country’s intellectual landscape. At the same time, the novel also emerges out of themes that had been brewing in Bolaño’s earlier…

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2035 words

Citation: Lopez-Vicuna, Ignacio. "Nocturno de Chile". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 July 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32541, accessed 03 December 2024.]

Roberto Bolaño, Nocturno de Chile [By Night in Chile]

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