The Return Author:Roberto Bolańo Here is the eagerly anticipated second volume of stories by Roberto BolaƱo. Tender or etched in acid; hazily suggestive or chillingly definitive: a trove of strangely arresting, short master works. As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of BolaƱoās short stories is that they can do... more » the āwork of a novel.ā The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories bent on returning to haunt you. Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a BolaƱo story might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend or a dream of meeting Enrique Lihn: his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece: a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor; just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange doings are afootāand what follows next defies the imagination (except BolaƱoās own).
Although a few have been serialized in The New Yorker and Playboy, most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to BolaƱoās many readers will be like catnip to the cats. .« less