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Fiction Roberto Bolaño. El gaucho insufrible. Barcelona. Anagrama. 2003. 179 pages. ISBN 84-339-6850-5
EL GAUCHO INSUFRIBLE, as the world of Hispanic letters knows, was the last book Roberta Bolano (1953-2003) delivered to his publisher. In about a decade, and especially after his novel Los detectives salvajes won two of the most prestigious literary prizes in Spain and Latin America, the Chilean's prose rightfully engendered comparisons with the best writers of the "boom." Much is being made of bolañismo as his legacy, and there are now two compilations of essays, notes, and reviews on his work.
What is captivating about the five stories in El gaucho insufrible is that, reeking off his obsessions, his originality and rigor as a short-story writer are intact, but the stories are not similar in quality. "Jim," the shortest and least successful, is a nostalgic goodbye to those American nomads who ended sadly in the Latin America they so wanted to save with their commitment or fascination with otherness. Like Jim, hypnotized by...