Antwerp

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Amidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites of the Costa Brava, someone has gone missing.

A detective sets out to find them. They search among the hapless girls, failed poets, and shifty policemen that populate this dream world – but every door opens onto a nightmare.

An experimental novella, spliced together in vignettes, Antwerp is Roberto Bolaño’s first work of fiction. A personal declaration of the power of literature, to read it is to be present at ‘the big bang’ of Bolaño’s enterprise into prose, to see the beginning, to witness the moment when his talent explodes.

TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER

'A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan’s bookshelf' Daily Telegraph

‘Bolaño set a new speed limit for literature. He simply wrote past other authors... His books are volcanic, perilous, charged with infectious erotic energy and demonic lucidity’ Benjamín Labatut, author of The Maniac

© Roberto Bolaño 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Reseñas de la Crítica

A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan’s bookshelf . . . the sentences whizz over your head like bullets.

It’s hard to think of a writer who has multiplied the possibilities more times than Roberto Bolaño.

There is great value if you are already a devotee.