The Return

By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator

Narrated by: Walter Krochmal

“One of the most respected and influential writers of [his] generation.” —John Banville, The Nation

“A genius . . . Bolaño had the courage to look at the world anew.” —Ilan Stavans, The Washington Post

Composed of thirteen indelible stories, Roberto Bolaño’s The Return is preoccupied with ghosts: troubled souls haunting society’s margins, lovers lost to the ages, young men who no longer recognize themselves in the mirror, fresh corpses afforded no peace, departed poets who visit us in dreams. These tales capture the extremes of human experience—sex, violence, death—and the mundane acts that linger in between, with Bolaño’s inimitable mordant humor and trenchant insight into what drives us. A master of the short form, Bolaño is as interested in the act of storytelling as he is in the stories themselves: how they nestle within one another; how they shift, spread, and scatter; and how they return to us again and again.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Critic reviews

“Dark, intimate and sneakily touching . . . There is gold to be found in this collection.”
—Michael Greenberg, The New York Times Book Review

“[‘The Return’ is one of] the greatest things Bolaño ever wrote.”
—Giles Harvey, The New Yorker

“A sense of death’s approach pulses through [The Return] . . . Each tale turns the reader into a voyeur, grasping at snapshots of troubled lives and ghosts.”
—Mina Holland, The Observer (London)

“Essential . . . A compelling encapsulation of Bolaño’s work.”
—Michael Singer, Los Angeles Times