Zombie story

Oscar Villalon, former book editor of The San Francisco Chronicle, reads an extract from "The Colonel's Son" by Roberto Bolaño, one of the pieces from The Secret of Evil.

Evil contents

The Secret of Evil, the posthumous selection of prose pieces by Roberto Bolaño, is out this month from New Directions. It's translated by Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer. I've yet to read it but here's the table of contents. The three pieces marked with asterisks were also published in Between Parentheses, translated by Natasha Wimmer.

0. Preliminary Note

1. Colonia Lindavista

2. The Secret of Evil

3. The Old Man of the Mountain

4. The Colonel's Son--Animated and excerpted (not online) by Granta. Most likely based on the zombie flick Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) (via comment).

5. Scholars of Sodom--About V. S. Naipaul's critique of Argentina. Excerpted in NYRblog. See also links to Naipaul’s essays from The New York Review of Books: Argentina: The Brothels Behind the Graveyard, The Corpse at the Iron Gate, and Comprehending Borges (via Ricardo Blanco's Blog).

6. The Room Next Door

7. Labyrinth--Excerpted in The New Yorker.

8. Vagaries of the Literature of Doom*

9. Crimes

10. I Can't Read--Excerpted in Harper's.

11. Beach*--Read a background of this story here.

12. Muscles

13. The Tour--Read a translation by Venepoetics.

14. Daniela

15. Suntan

16. Death of Ulises

17. The Troublemaker

18. Sevilla Kills Me*--A short controversial and unfinished piece. I read an essay by Jorge Volpi (I think through Google Translate) criticizing Bolaño's Spanish editor Ignacio Echevarría for publishing it.

19. Days of Chaos

THE FINISHED COVER

See related posts on The Secret of Evil here.

With thanks to Michael for the contents and cover image.

"Scholars of Sodom"

Argentineans are not especially popular in the rest of Latin America, but I can assure you that no Latin American has written a critique as devastating as Naipaul’s. Not even a Chilean. Once, in a conversation with Rodrigo Fresán, I asked him what he thought of Naipaul’s essay. Fresán, whose knowledge of literature in English is encyclopedic, barely remembered it, even though Naipaul is one of his favorite authors. But to get back to the story: Naipaul listens and notes down his impressions but mostly he walks around Buenos Aires.

- "Scholars of Sodom", Roberto Bolaño, trans. Chris Andrews, from The Secret of Evil (2012), excerpted in NYRblog (read more)

A peeing incident

A strange thing happened (one of the many strange things that will happen in this story and carry it and perhaps turn out to be what it’s really about): when they got to the swimming pool, Lautaro asked Carolina if he could have a pee. She, of course, said yes, and then Lautaro went to the edge of the pool, pulled down his trunks a bit and peed into the water. That night, Carolina said that she’d been embarrassed, not for Lautaro, but because of what Alexandra might have thought. The fact is Lautaro had never done anything like that before. The swimming pool wasn’t really busy, but there were a few people, and my son is not some wild boy who pees wherever he feels like it.

– from "I can't read" by Roberto Bolaño, trans. Chris Andrews, Harper's Magazine

Evil cover

Published by New Directions, 2012

(Thanks, M. Pollack!)

Photo story

And yet there are certain features of the photo (something about the arrangement of the objects, the petrified, musical rhododendron, two of its leaves invading the space of the ficus like clouds within a cloud, the grass growing in the planter, which looks more like fire than grass, the everlasting leaning whimsically to the left, the glasses in the center of the table, well away from the edges, except for Kristeva’s, as if the other members of the group were worried they might fall) that suggest a more complex and subtle web of relations among these men and women.

- from "Labyrinth", a story by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews, in The New Yorker. The story was accompanied by an interview with Barbara Epler, New Directions publisher, in the magazine's blog.

See also: interview with Natasha Wimmer about her translation of the Bolaño novel The Third Reich.

Attack of the zombies

"The Colonel's Son", a story of Roberto Bolaño (not online), appears in the Horror Issue of Granta. I'm presuming this is from the upcoming The Secret of Evil.

The story is about "a B-grade horror flick ... on late night TV." What is online is an animation inspired by this piece.

Nothingbutamovie.com is an HTML5-based animation inspired by Bolaño’s story. It was created by Owen Freeman and web designers at Jocabola.

Coming in 2012: The Secret of Evil

For a while, the publication date of The Secret of Evil was set for November 1st. But now it was moved to April 2012. I guess All Saint's Day won't do.

The book design was from a series done by Rodrigo Corral Design. It was, how shall I put it, "a steaming cup of peyote".

(Image)

Bolaño translations, 2012-201X

Manuela Martelli and Luigi Ciardo act in "The Future"

It's never too early to anticipate. This year Bolaño enthusiasts are lucky to be treated to three works in English translation: Between Parentheses, Tres (bilingual), and The Third Reich. At least six more are awaiting English publication.

• The Secret of Evil - a posthumous prose collection.
  
• Advice from a Morrison Follower to a Joyce Fanatic - an early novel written with Bolaño's friend A. G. Porta. You can't judge a book by its cool title. But it could earn some points.
• Diorama - one of 3 books discovered among Bolaño's papers. Still unpublished in Spanish.
• A Lumpen Novella - El futuro, the film adaptation of this book, is already being shot on location in Rome. It will be perfect if the short novel will come out as a movie tie-in. It had a rather interesting premise. 

• The Troubles of the Real Police Officer - another discovered manuscript. It came out in Spanish early this year. It's very likely it will be released in English in mid- to late 2012. And the wonderful Natasha Wimmer will probably translate again for FSG. 
• The Unknown University - the last of Bolaño's 3 major collections of poetry translated by Laura Healy. New Directions will most likely publish this in 2012.

There may be other odds and ends, unpublished/uncollected pieces, and interviews/essays from the anthologies Bolaño por sí mismo and Palabra de América. What is certain is we'll not yet run out of Bolaño covers to look forward to in the next couple of years. 



(Bolaño bibliography; Image)