The Return (short story collection)
Encyclopedia
The Return is a collection of short stories by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño
, published in English in 2010, translated by Chris Andrews. This volume contains all the stories from Bolaño's two Spanish language collections, Llamadas Telefonicas (1997), and Putas Asesinas (2001), which have not been previously included in the 2006 collection Last Evenings on Earth
.
; a previous correspondence with him included a discussion of Chile's "six tigers of Chilean poetry" (including Bolaño himself) though by the time of their meeting none of the poets had achieved much, excluding Rodrigo Lira, who had committed suicide. In spite of their past correspondence Lihn does not acknowledge knowing the narrator when they are introduced, and the narrator also pretends that they are not acquainted. Later on Lihn suddenly realizes that he is dead, and the narrator leaves him. Out on the street he runs into someone he doesn't know who confuses him with someone else, and Bolaño plays along. The man soon realizes his mistake, but then proceeds to play along himself, pretending that he knows Bolaño. Both are aware of the game, and Bolaño constructs a whole story regarding the man, whom he calls Jara, and his supposed life. Bolaño returns to Lihn and they go to his surreal apartment, which seems to have a glass floor and constantly changes in structure and appearance. They eventually return to the bar where Lihn tells him that "The tigers are finished, and, It was sweet while it lasted, and, You’re not going to believe this, Bolaño, but in this neighborhood only the dead go out for a walk."
Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes...
, published in English in 2010, translated by Chris Andrews. This volume contains all the stories from Bolaño's two Spanish language collections, Llamadas Telefonicas (1997), and Putas Asesinas (2001), which have not been previously included in the 2006 collection Last Evenings on Earth
Last Evenings on Earth
Last Evenings on Earth is a collection of short stories, published in 2006, by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño translated by Chris Andrews. The stories in this volume were selected from two Spanish language collections, Llamadas Telefonicas , and Putas Asesinas...
.
The Stories
- "Snow"
- "Another Russian Tale"
- "William Burns" - a man from Ventura, CaliforniaVentura, CaliforniaVentura is the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States, incorporated in 1866. The population was 106,433 at the 2010 census, up from 100,916 at the 2000 census. Ventura is accessible via U.S...
looks after two women who are convinced they are being stalked by a killer. - "Detectives"
- "Cell Mates"
- "Clara"
- "Joanna Sivestri"
- "Prefiguration of Lalo Cura" - a ColombiaColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n man remembering his childhood with his mother who was a porn actress. - "Murdering Whores"
- "The Return"
- "Buba"
- "Photos"
"Meeting with Enrique Lihn"
The narrator (Roberto Bolaño) recalls a dream about meeting the dead poet Enrique LihnEnrique Lihn
Enrique Lihn Carrasco was a Chilean poet, playwright, and novelist. The son of Enrique Lihn Doll and María Carrasco Délano, he married Ivette Mingram and they had one daughter: Andrea María Lihn Mingram, an actress.Born in 1929 at Santiago, Chile, Lihn aspired to be a painter but after a failed...
; a previous correspondence with him included a discussion of Chile's "six tigers of Chilean poetry" (including Bolaño himself) though by the time of their meeting none of the poets had achieved much, excluding Rodrigo Lira, who had committed suicide. In spite of their past correspondence Lihn does not acknowledge knowing the narrator when they are introduced, and the narrator also pretends that they are not acquainted. Later on Lihn suddenly realizes that he is dead, and the narrator leaves him. Out on the street he runs into someone he doesn't know who confuses him with someone else, and Bolaño plays along. The man soon realizes his mistake, but then proceeds to play along himself, pretending that he knows Bolaño. Both are aware of the game, and Bolaño constructs a whole story regarding the man, whom he calls Jara, and his supposed life. Bolaño returns to Lihn and they go to his surreal apartment, which seems to have a glass floor and constantly changes in structure and appearance. They eventually return to the bar where Lihn tells him that "The tigers are finished, and, It was sweet while it lasted, and, You’re not going to believe this, Bolaño, but in this neighborhood only the dead go out for a walk."
External links
- "Clara" - a story from the collection, published in The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, August 4, 2008. - "Meeting with Enrique Lihn" - a story from the collection, published in The New Yorker, December 22, 2008.
- "William Burns" - a story from the collection, published in The New Yorker, February 8, 2010.
- "Prefiguration of Lalo Cura" - a story from the collection, published in The New Yorker, April 19, 2010.