Among the novels written by Roberto Bolaño, translator Natasha Wimmer was quick to identify
The Savage Detectives as her
favorite. According to her, it is "just the easiest one to fall for". While working on her translation of the novel, she personally went to Mexico and visited the places mentioned in the book. She talked about it in an interview posted in
Granta Online Only:
I
know that you spent some time in Mexico City when working on The Savage
Detectives, Bolaño’s debut novel – in what way did this affect your
interpretation of the book?
Natasha Wimmer: [T]he time I spent there completely transformed my understanding of the book. The Savage Detectives
is a love song to Mexico City, and to walk the same streets that Bolaño
and his characters walked gave me a very intimate, visceral sense of
the city and the novel. There’s something about Mexico City at night, in
particular, that’s distinctive. For one thing, it’s darker than most
other cities I know, which means that things seem to loom out at you as
you walk, and you have the sense that you’re on the verge of the kind of
bizarre encounter that Bolaño’s characters have all the time. I also
spent time at Café La Habana (the original of Café Quito in the novel),
which hasn’t changed much since Bolaño hung out there, and I stumbled
over all kinds of cultural details that saved me from translation
pitfalls (‘El Santo’??? for example, was one of the notes scribbled on
my first draft of the translation; he is, of course, Mexico’s most
famous masked wrestler, as I soon discovered).
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