''2666'' is the last novel by
Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' (''The Savage Detectives' ...
. It was released in 2004, a year after Bolaño's death. It is over 1100 pages long in Spanish, and almost 900 in its English translation, it is divided into five parts. An English-language translation by
Natasha Wimmer
Natasha Wimmer (born 1973) is an American translator best known for her translations of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño's ''2666'' and ''The Savage Detectives'' from Spanish into English.
Wimmer learned Spanish in Spain, where she spent four yea ...
was published in the United States in 2008, by
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...
, and in the United Kingdom in 2009, by
Picador
A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bullf ...
. It is a
fragmentary novel A fragmentary novel is a novel made of fragments, vignettes, segments, documents or chapters that can be read in isolation and/or as part of the greater whole of the book. These novels typically lack a traditional plot or set of characters and ofte ...
.
Significance
Critical reception of the novel has been positive. In Chile, it won the
Altazor Award
The Altazor Award of the National Arts or simply Altazor, is a Chilean award which is awarded annually. The winners are chosen by the own creators and performers of the arts. They were established in 1958, but were not awarded until 1999. The a ...
in 2005. ''
The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' included it in the list of "10 Best Books of 2008"; ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' named it Best Fiction Book of 2008; and the novel won the 2008
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".[Best Translated Book Award
The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...]
. Critics have compared it to the work of
W. G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
. They praised the book's multiple story lines and scope.
Premise
The novel revolves around an elusive German author and the unsolved and ongoing murders of women in
Santa Teresa, a violent city inspired by
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju ...
and its epidemic of
female homicides. In addition to Santa Teresa, settings and themes include the
Eastern Front in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the academic world, mental illness, journalism, and the breakdown of relationships and careers. ''2666'' explores 20th-century
degeneration through a wide array of characters, locations, time periods, and stories within stories.
Background
While Bolaño was writing ''2666'', he was already sick and on the waiting list for a liver transplant.
He had never visited
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju ...
but received information and support from friends and colleagues such as the Mexican journalist
Sergio González Rodríguez
Sergio González Rodríguez (26 January 1950 – 3 April 2017) was a Mexican journalist and writer who was best known for his works on the femicides in Ciudad Juárez from the 1990s to the 2000s, such as ''Huesos en el desierto'' (''Bones in the ...
, author of the 2002 book of essays and journalistic chronicles ''Huesos en el desierto'' (Spanish: "Bones in the Desert"), concerning the place and its
femicides. He discussed the novel with his friend Jorge Herralde, director of Barcelona-based publisher
Anagrama
Anagrama is a Spanish publisher founded in 1969 by Jorge Herralde. In 2010 it was sold to the Italian publisher Feltrinelli.
Since 1969, Anagrama has published over 3,500 titles. currently, Anagrama publishes around 100 books annually, between t ...
, but he never showed the actual manuscript to anyone until he died: the manuscript is a first copy.
Originally planning it as a single book, Bolaño then considered publishing ''2666'' as five volumes to provide more income for his children; however, the heirs decided otherwise and the book was published in one lengthy volume. Bolaño had been well aware of the book's unfinished status, and said a month before his death that over a thousand pages still had to be revised.
[
]
Title
The meaning of the title, ''2666'', is typically elusive; even Bolaño's friends did not know the reasons for it. Larry Rohter
William Lawrence Rohter, Jr. (born February 3, 1950), known as Larry Rohter, is an American journalist who was a South American bureau chief (based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) for ''The New York Times'' from 1999 to 2007. Previously, he was Caribbe ...
, writing for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', notes that Bolaño apparently ascribed an apocalyptic quality to the number. Henry Hitchings
Henry Hitchings (born 11 December 1974) is an author, reviewer and critic, specializing in narrative non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on language and cultural history. The second of his books, ''The Secret Life of Words: How English Beca ...
noted that "the novel's cryptic title is one of its many grim jokes" and may be a reference to the biblical Exodus from Egypt
The Exodus (Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, ''Yeẓi’at Miẓrayim'': ) is the founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four books of the Torah (or Pentateuch, corresponding to the first five books of the Bible), namely Ex ...
, supposedly 2,666 years after God created the earth. The number does not appear in the book, though it does in some of Bolaño's other books—in ''Amulet
An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...
'', a Mexico City road looks like "a cemetery in the year 2666", and ''The Savage Detectives
''The Savage Detectives'' (Spanish: ''Los Detectives Salvajes'') is a novel by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño published in 1998. Natasha Wimmer's English translation was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007. The novel tells the st ...
'' contains another, approximate reference: "And Cesárea said something about days to come... and the teacher, to change the subject, asked her what times she meant and when they would be. And Cesárea named a date, sometime around the year 2600. Two thousand six hundred and something".
Plot summary
The novel is substantially concerned with violence and death. According to Levi Stahl, it "is another iteration of Bolaño's increasingly baroque, cryptic, and mystical personal vision of the world, revealed obliquely by his recurrent symbols, images, and tropes". Within the novel, "There is something secret, horrible, and cosmic afoot, centered around Santa Teresa (and possibly culminating in the mystical year of the book's title, a date that is referred to in passing in ''Amulet'' as well). We can at most glimpse it, in those uncanny moments when the world seems wrong."
The novel's five parts are linked by varying degrees of concern with unsolved murders of upwards of 300 young, poor, mostly uneducated Mexican women in the fictional border town of Santa Teresa (based on Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju ...
but located in Sonora
Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...
rather than Chihuahua Chihuahua may refer to:
Places
*Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state
**Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state
**Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state
**Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state
**Chihuahua Mun ...
) though it is the fourth part which focuses specifically on the murders.
The Part about the Critics
This part describes a group of four European literary critics
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
, the French Jean-Claude Pelletier, the Italian Piero Morini, the Spaniard Manuel Espinoza and the English woman Liz Norton, who have forged their careers around the reclusive German novelist Benno von Archimboldi
Benno von Archimboldi is a fictional character in the novel ''2666'' (2004) by Roberto Bolaño.
Archimboldi is the pen name of German author Hans Reiter (born in 1920 and still alive in 2001, a 'great attractor' (one among many) the dense plotting ...
. Their search for Archimboldi himself and details of his life causes them to get to know his aging publisher Mrs. Bubis. Then in a seminary in Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
the four academics meet up with Rodolfo Alatorre, a Mexican who says a friend knew him in Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
a short while back and that from there the elusive German was said to be going to the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa in Sonora
Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...
. Three of the academics go there in search of him but fail to find him. A major element of this part centers around romantic entanglements between the critics.
The Part about Amalfitano
This part concentrates on Óscar Amalfitano, a Chilean professor of philosophy who arrives at the University of Santa Teresa from Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
with his young adult daughter Rosa. As a single parent (since her mother Lola abandoned them both when Rosa was two) Amalfitano fears Rosa will become another victim of the femicides plaguing the city.
The Part about Fate
This part follows Oscar Fate, an American journalist from New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
who works for an African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
interest magazine in Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He is sent to Santa Teresa to cover a boxing match despite not being a sports correspondent and knowing very little about boxing. A Mexican journalist, Chucho Flores, who is also covering the fight, tells him about the murders. He asks his newspaper if he can write an article about the murders but his proposal is rejected. He meets up with a female journalist, Guadalupe, who is covering the murders and who promises to get him an interview with one of the main suspects, Klaus Haas, a German who had become a citizen of the United States before moving to Santa Teresa. The day of the fight Chucho presents Oscar to Rosa Amalfitano. After a violent incident they end up at Óscar Amalfitano's house where the father pays Fate to take Rosa with him back to the United States by car. Before leaving, however, Rosa and Fate go to the prison with Guadalupe to interview the femicide suspect, Klaus Haas.
The Part about the Crimes
This part chronicles the murders of 112 women in Santa Teresa from 1993 to 1997 and the lives they lived. It also depicts the police force in their mostly fruitless attempts to solve the crimes, as well as giving clinical descriptions of the circumstances and probable causes of the various homicides. One of the policemen focused on is Juan de Dios Martínez, who is having a relationship with the older Elvira Campo (the head of a sanitarium) and who also has to investigate the case of a man, aptly nicknamed "The Penitent," who keeps urinating and defecating in churches. Klaus Haas (the German femicide suspect Fate was to interview in "the part about Fate") is another of the characters this part focuses on. Haas calls a press conference where he claims that Daniel Uribe, son of a rich local family, is responsible for the murders.
The Part about Archimboldi
This part reveals that the mysterious writer Archimboldi is really Hans Reiter, born in 1920 in Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
. This section describes how a provincial German soldier on the Eastern Front became an author in contention for the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
. Mrs. Bubis, who was introduced in the first part, turns out to have been Baroness von Zumpe; her family were a major part of Archimboldi's childhood, since his mother cleaned their country home and young Hans spent a lot of time with the Baroness's cousin, Hugo Halder, from whom he learned about the artistic life. Reiter meets the Baroness again during the war while in Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, and has an affair with her after the war (she is then married to Bubis, the publisher). At the end of this part Bolaño's narrator describes the life of Lotte, Archimboldi's sister, and it is revealed that the femicide suspect Klaus Haas is her son and thus Archimboldi's nephew.
Critical reception
The critical reception has been almost unanimously positive. ''2666'' was considered the best novel of 2005 within the literary world of both Spain and Latin America. Before the English-language edition was published in 2008, ''2666'' was praised by Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...
in her ''O, The Oprah Magazine
''O, The Oprah Magazine'', also known simply as ''O'', is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications.
Overview
It was first published on April 19, 2000. , its average paid circulation was ...
'' after she was given a copy of the translation before it was officially published.
The book was listed in ''The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' "10 Best Books of 2008" by the paper's editors. with Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...
writing:
:"''2666'' is as consummate a performance as any 900-page novel dare hope to be: Bolaño won the race to the finish line in writing what he plainly intended as a master statement. Indeed, he produced not only a supreme capstone to his own vaulting ambition, but a landmark in what's possible for the novel as a form in our increasingly, and terrifyingly, post-national world. ''The Savage Detectives
''The Savage Detectives'' (Spanish: ''Los Detectives Salvajes'') is a novel by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño published in 1998. Natasha Wimmer's English translation was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007. The novel tells the st ...
'' looks positively hermetic beside it. (...) As in Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo (; also spelled ''Arcimboldi'') (1526 or 1527 – 11 July 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books.
These w ...
's paintings, the individual elements of ''2666'' are easily catalogued, while the composite result, though unmistakable, remains ominously implicit, conveying a power unattainable by more direct strategies. (...) "
Amaia Gabantxo in the ''Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'' wrote:
:"(A)n exceptionally exciting literary labyrinth.... What strikes one first about it is the stylistic richness: rich, elegant yet slangy language that is immediately recognizable as Bolaño's own mixture of Chilean, Mexican and European Spanish. Then there is ''2666''s resistance to categorization. At times it is reminiscent of James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, sta ...
: gritty and scurrilous. At other moments it seems as though the ''Alexandria Quartet
''The Alexandria Quartet'' is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters ...
'' had been transposed to Mexico and populated by ragged versions of Durrell
Durrell is a surname, and may refer to
Members of the Durrell family
* Gerald Durrell
* Jacquie Durrell
* Lawrence Durrell
* Lawrence Samuel Durrell
* Lee McGeorge Durrell
* Louisa Dixie Durrell
* Margaret Durrell
* Leslie Durrell
* Shame D ...
's characters. There's also a similarity with W. G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
's work.... There are no defining moments in ''2666''. Mysteries are never resolved. Anecdotes are all there is. Freak or banal events happen simultaneously, inform each other and poignantly keep the wheel turning. There is no logical end to a Bolano book."
Ben Ehrenreich
Ben Ehrenreich (born 1972) is an American freelance journalist and novelist who lives in Los Angeles.
Career
Ehrenreich began working as a journalist in the alternative press in the late 1990s, publishing extensively in ''LA Weekly'' and ''The Vi ...
in the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'':
:"This is no ordinary whodunit, but it is a murder mystery. Santa Teresa is not just a hell. It's a mirror also—"the sad American mirror of wealth and poverty and constant, useless metamorphosis."... He wrote ''2666'' in a race against death. His ambitions were appropriately outsized: to make some final reckoning, to take life's measure, to wrestle to the limits of the void. So his reach extends beyond northern Mexico in the 1990s to Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, to Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
's castle and the bottom of the sea."
Adam Kirsch
Adam Kirsch (born 1976) is an American poet and literary critic. He is on the seminar faculty of Columbia University's Center for American Studies, and has taught at YIVO.
Life and career
Kirsch was born in Los Angeles in 1976. He is the son of ...
in ''Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'':
:"''2666'' is an epic of whispers and details, full of buried structures and intuitions that seem too evanescent, or too terrible, to put into words. It demands from the reader a kind of abject submission—to its willful strangeness, its insistent grimness, even its occasional tedium—that only the greatest books dare to ask for or deserve."
Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, ''Monkey Boy'' (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fi ...
in ''New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
'':
:"The multiple story lines of ''2666'' are borne along by narrators who seem also to represent various of its literary influences, from European avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
to critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
to pulp fiction
''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhame ...
, and who converge on the ictionalcity of Santa Teresa as if propelled toward some final unifying epiphany. It seems appropriate that ''2666''s abrupt end leaves us just short of whatever that epiphany might have been.."
Online book review site '' The Complete Review'' gave it an "A+", a rating reserved for a small handful of books, saying:
:"Forty years after García Márquez
García or Garcia may refer to:
People
* García (surname)
* Kings of Pamplona/Navarre
** García Íñiguez of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 851/2–882
** García Sánchez I of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 931–970
** García Sánchez II of Pampl ...
shifted the foundations with '' One Hundred Years of Solitude'', Bolaño has moved them again. ''2666'' is, simply put, epochal. No question, the first great book of the twenty-first century."
Henry Hitchings
Henry Hitchings (born 11 December 1974) is an author, reviewer and critic, specializing in narrative non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on language and cultural history. The second of his books, ''The Secret Life of Words: How English Beca ...
in ''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'':
:"''2666''... is a summative work – a grand recapitulation of the author's main concerns and motifs. As before, Bolaño is preoccupied with parallel lives and secret histories. Largely written after 9/11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
, the novel manifests a new emphasis on the dangerousness of the modern world.... ''2666'' is an excruciatingly challenging novel, in which Bolaño redraws the boundaries of fiction. It is not unique in blurring the margins between realism and fantasy, between documentary and invention. But it is bold in a way that few works really are – it kicks away the divide between playfulness and seriousness. And it reminds us that literature at its best inhabits what Bolaño, with a customary wink at his own pomposity, called "the territory of risk" – it takes us to places we might not wish to go."
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
in ''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'':
:"This surreal novel can't be described; it has to be experienced in all its crazed glory. Suffice it to say it concerns what may be the most horrifying real-life mass-murder spree of all time: as many as 400 women killed in the vicinity of Juarez, Mexico. Given this as a backdrop, the late Bolaño paints a mural of a poverty-stricken society that appears to be eating itself alive. And who cares? Nobody, it seems."
In 2018, Fiction Advocate published a book-length analysis of ''2666'' entitled ''An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom'' by author and critic Jonathan Russell Clark. An excerpt of the book was published in The Believer
Believer(s) or The Believer(s) may refer to:
Religion
* Believer, a person who holds a particular belief
** Believer, a person who holds a particular religious belief
*** Believers, Christians with a religious faith in the divine Christ
*** Beli ...
in March 2018.
Awards and honors
It won the Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
an Altazor Award
The Altazor Award of the National Arts or simply Altazor, is a Chilean award which is awarded annually. The winners are chosen by the own creators and performers of the arts. They were established in 1958, but were not awarded until 1999. The a ...
in 2005. The 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".[Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' (''The Savage Detectives' ...]
for ''2666''.[ It was short-listed for the ]Best Translated Book Award
The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the onlin ...
. ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' also awarded it the honour of Best Fiction Book of 2008.[Motoko Rich (12 March 2009)]
"Bolano and Filkins win awards from National Book Critics Circle"
''The New York Times'' ArtsBeat blog.
Adaptation
In 2007, the novel was adapted as a stage play by Spanish director Àlex Rigola
Àlex Rigola (born in Barcelona, 28 November 1969) is a Spanish theatre director. He has directed the Teatre Lliure since March 2003 as well as the theatre section of the Venice Biennale. He holds a directing degree from the Escola Superior d'Art D ...
, and it premiered in Bolaño's adopted hometown of Blanes
Blanes () is a town and municipality in the comarca of Selva in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. During Roman rule it was named Blanda or Blandae. It is known as the "Gateway to the Costa Brava". Its coast is part of the Costa Brava, which stretches ...
. The play was the main attraction of Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
's Festival Grec that year.
In 2016, it was adapted into a five-hour stage play at Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
's Goodman Theater
Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the lan ...
. The stage adaptation was praised for its ambition, but according to ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', it fell "short as a work of dramatic art."
In 2016, it was adapted into an 11-hour play by Julien Gosselin and his troupe "Si vous pouviez lécher mon cœur". It was presented at the Festival d'Avignon and then in Paris at the Odéon theatre as part of Festival d'Automne.
Notes
External links
*
''2666''
at '' complete review''. Aggregates links to most of the professional reviews.
*
Roberto Bolaño's "2666"
by Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman (born 1954) is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, ''Monkey Boy'' (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fi ...
*
"Natasha Wimmer on Roberto Bolaño's ''2666''"
*
"On Bolaño’s ''2666''"
by Eric Fershtman, ''Construction Magazine'' (24 February 2012)
"Por una ética del desorden en América Latina (2666)" in ''Revista Nómadas''
{{Works by Roberto Bolaño
2004 novels
Chilean speculative fiction novels
Novels about journalists
Novels set in the 1940s
Novels set in the 1990s
Novels set in France
Novels set in Germany
Novels set in Mexico
Novels set in Romania
Editorial Anagrama books
Works by Roberto Bolaño
Novels set during World War II
National Book Critics Circle Award-winning works
Novels about writers
Novels published posthumously
Novels adapted into plays
Postmodern novels