<b>"A major contribution..."<i>—Los Angeles Tmes<br><br></i>The first biography of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, whose <i>Savage Detectives</i> and <i>2666</i> were bestsellers in the U.S. Written by a noted magazine writer who knew</b> <b>and interviewed Bolaño.</b><br><br>How to know the man behind works of fiction so prone to extravagance? In the first biography of Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolaño, journalist Mónica Maristain tracks Bolaño from his childhood in Chile to his youth in Mexico and his early infatuation with literature, to his beginnings as a poet, and to the stardom that came with the publication of the novels <i>The Savage Detectives</i> and <i>2666</i>.<br><br>Throughout the book, Maristain present an image far removed from the stereotypes that have been created over the years to introduce a writer whose works grabbed readers worldwide. Maristain writes as a journalist and admirer, impressed with the power of Bolaño’s prose and the cool irony with which he faced the literary world.