About this Item
1st Printing. 165 pages. Published in 2010. The author's twelfth book to be translated into English. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Roberto Bolano's "The Insufferable Gaucho" in a felicitous English translation. Seven of Roberto Bolano's most autobiographically poignant pieces. The work of a writer who chose a life of exile and struggled with illness. "Explores themes of self-exile and illness. The two best stories concern conflicted Argentine protagonists. In the title story, Hector Pereda leaves Buenos Aires after the death of his wife and the collapse of the country's economy to make a go as a gaucho on the pampas. Inhabiting a ruined ranch, with only the languid locals and predatory rabbits as company, Hector finds a welcome, near-poetic restoration of a society where self-reliance and egalitarianism reign. In 'Alvaro Rousselot's Journey', an acclaimed Argentine novelist sets out for Paris to confront a filmmaker who has blatantly plagiarized his books though what really eats at the novelist is that the filmmaker has ignored the writer's recent works, leaving him with the sense that he had lost his best reader" (Publisher's blurb). What exactly is Roberto Bolano's achievement? "He emerged as a writer at a time when Latin America no longer believed in utopias, when paradise had become hell, and that sense of monstrousness and waking nightmares and constant flight from something horrid permeates '2666' and all his work. A writer who worked without a net, who went all out, with no brakes, and in doing so, created a new way to be a great Latin American writer" (Rodrigo Fresan). The consistently high level of Bolano's virtuosity is almost miraculous when one sees it as having been achieved during a brief and miserable personal life. It was as though he turned to literature not just to complement or complete but to change his life altogether. By the time of his untimely death in 2003 at the age of 50, Bolano was universally regarded as the greatest Spanish-language novelist of our time. "The real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). An absolute "must-have" title for Roberto Bolano collectors. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online are damaged/bumped because of shoddy packing and poor handling on the publisher's part. A scarce copy thus. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERTO BOLANO TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0811217167. Seller Inventory # 15738
Bibliographic Details
Title: THE INSUFFERABLE GAUCHO - Scarce Pristine ...
Publisher: New York City, NY: New Directions Books, 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: As New
Dust Jacket Condition: As New
Signed: no
Edition: 1st Edition.
About this title
A trove of strange, arresting, short masterworks ― five stories and two essays ― by Roberto Bolano, a writer who pulls bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat.
As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano’s short stories is that they can do the “work of a novel.” The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you. Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled yet somehow haywire, a Bolano story might concern an elusive plagiarist or an elderly lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the family estate, now gone to wrack and ruin. Bolano’s stories have been applauded as “bleakly luminous and perfectly calibrated” (Publishers Weekly) and “complex and provocative” (International Herald Tribune), and as Francine Prose said in The New York Times Book Review, “something extraordinarily beautiful and (at least to me) entirely new.” Two fascinating essays are also included.Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed “by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time” (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times),” and as “the real thing and the rarest” (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50.
The poet Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, where he is a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre. He has translated books by Roberto Bolano and César Aira for New Directions. He has won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for his poetry and the Valle-Inclan Prize for his translations.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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