Description
A "biographical dictionary" gathering 30 brief accounts of poets, novelists and editors (all fictional) who espouse fascist or extremely right-wing political views.
Nazi Literature in the Americas is composed of short biographies, including descriptions of the writers' works, plus an epilogue ("for Monsters"), which includes even briefer biographies of persons mentioned in passing. All of the writers are imaginary, although they are all carefully and credibly situated in real literary worlds. Ernesto Pérez Masón, for example, in the sample included here, is an imaginary member of the real Orígenes group in Cuba, and his farcical clashes with José Lezama Lima recall stories about the spats between Lezama Lima and Virgilio Piñera, as recounted in Guillermo Cabrera Infante's Mea Cuba. The origins of the imaginary writers are diverse. Authors from twelve different countries are included. The countries with the most representatives are Argentina (8) and the USA (7).
Reviews
"Nazi Literature in the Americas, a wicked invented encyclopedia of imaginary fascist writers and literary tastemakers, is Bolaño playing with sharp, twisting knives. As if he were Borges’s wisecracking, sardonic son, Bolaño has meticulously created a tightly woven network of far-right litterateurs and purveyors of belles lettres for whom Hitler was beauty, truth, and the great lost hope. " — Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review
"It is imaginative, full of a love for literature, and, unlikely as it may seem, exceptionally entertaining." — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"The wild inventiveness of Bolaño's evocations places them squarely in the realm of Borges—another writer who draws enormous power from the movement between the fictive and the real. " — Publishers Weekly
"With his meticulous, expertly crafted idiosyncrasies Bolaño has created another universe here, a breathing, thriving world." — Ben Granger, Spike Magazine
"Masterfully executed…the book is wildly funny… [a] wickedly entertaining and evocative masterwork." — Robert Leiter, Jewish Exponent
Also By: Roberto Bolaño 
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E Book, 2014
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Paperback, 2013
These five astonishing stories, along with two compelling essays, show Bolaño as a magician, pulling bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat.
The Insufferable Gaucho
E Book, 2013
These five astonishing stories, along with two compelling essays, show Bolaño as a magician, pulling bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat.
The Return
Paperback, 2012
A stunning collection of short stories - mostly dealing with the sex trade - by the late Chilean master and author of The Savage Detectives.
The Return
E Book, 2012
A stunning collection of short stories - mostly dealing with the sex trade - by the late Chilean master and author of The Savage Detectives.
Also By: Chris Andrews
I Don't Care
Paperback, 2024
Never before translated short stories—“stark and haunting” (San Francisco Chronicle)—by the legendary genius Ágota Kristóf
Fulgentius
Paperback, 2023
Aira holds a fun-house mirror up to the genre of historical fiction in this novel about an aging Roman general on what may be his last campaign into the provinces.
The Famous Magician
Hardback, 2022
A writer is offered a devil’s bargain: will he give up reading books in exchange for total world domination?
The Famous Magician
E Book, 2022
A writer is offered a devil’s bargain: will he give up reading books in exchange for total world domination?
The Divorce
Paperback, 2021
With a preface by the irrepressible Patti Smith, The Divorce is a delightful book of several short amazing stories of chance meetings, bizarre circumstances, and even stranger visions of alternate...
