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| 2666 | |
|---|---|
| Name | 2666 |
| Author | Roberto Bolaño |
| Language | Spanish |
| Country | Chile |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Anagrama |
| Pub date | 2004 |
| Pages | 912 |
2666
2666 is a posthumous novel by Roberto Bolaño originally published in 2004 by Anagrama in Barcelona. The work, divided into five parts, interweaves narratives set in Santa Teresa, Chihuahua, Munich, Paris, Rome and Buenos Aires and invokes figures and places such as Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar to situate its literary genealogy. Its sprawling structure connects investigations of violence, literary criticism, disappearances and wartime allusions through characters linked to World War II, Nazism, Soviet Union and Latin American literary networks.
The novel opens with a group of critics conversing about the reclusive German novelist Benno von Archimboldi and moves through episodes involving academic life in Heidelberg, investigative journalism in Santa Teresa, and wartime reminiscences tied to Prague, Dresden and Auschwitz. A sequence follows a collective search for Archimboldi that traces connections to writers such as Thomas Mann, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino and Marcel Proust. Parallel threads depict the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez and link detectives, journalists and expatriates — including references to Julian Sorel, Ernesto Sabato, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo — as the narrative moves between Mexico City, New York City, Berlin and Milan.
Major figures include a circle of critics modeled after real-life personalities akin to César Aira, Enrique Vila-Matas, Toni Rodríguez and J. M. Coetzee-like intellectuals; the journalist Amalfitano, a professor resonant with Alejo Carpentier and Rodolfo Walsh; the investigator Oscar Amalfitano’s son associated with Pablo Neruda-era exile; the German soldier-turned-writer Archimboldi, whose biography intersects with references to Heinrich Himmler, Erwin Rommel, Konrad Adenauer and Joseph Stalin; and a journalist-investigator linked to Laura Restrepo and Gabriela Mistral archetypes. Secondary characters populate scenes invoking Isabel Allende, Václav Havel, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca and Pablo Picasso, while minor figures echo names such as Cesare Pavese, Romain Gary, Nadine Gordimer and Vladimir Nabokov.
The novel explores violence and impunity through parallels with Dirty War-era disappearances, references to Nazi war crimes, Stalinist purges and the aftermath of Spanish Civil War-era trauma. Literary obsession, embodied by links to Modernism figures like James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and William Faulkner, recurs alongside motifs of urban decay in Tijuana, Los Angeles, Madrid and Lisbon. Death and transience are evoked with echoes of Samuel Beckett, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Rainer Maria Rilke; narratives of exile recall Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur Rimbaud, Pablo Neruda and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The persistence of evil is framed by references to Adolf Eichmann, Luciano Ligabue-style popular culture, Televisa-era media, and the bureaucratic indifference associated with institutions such as Interpol and Amnesty International.
Bolaño drafted fragments in cities like Barcelona, Mexico City, Paris and Santiago de Chile, with manuscripts kept among personal papers alongside drafts reminiscent of methods used by Marcel Proust, Henry Miller and Gustave Flaubert. After Bolaño’s death in 2003, editors at Anagrama compiled the five-part manuscript, invoking editorial decisions comparable to posthumous publications of Franz Kafka and John Keats. The five parts—each with distinct settings and tones—showcase allusions to Surrealism figures such as André Breton, Max Ernst and Man Ray, and to travel-writings by Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin.
International critics compared the novel to magnum opuses like War and Peace, Ulysses, One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Magic Mountain, while prizes and discussions referenced the Nobel Prize in Literature, Premio Cervantes and Booker Prize debates. Reviews in publications aligned with institutions such as The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, Le Monde and El País debated its portrayal of gendered violence, evoking scholars and writers including Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Svetlana Alexievich and Homi K. Bhabha. The novel influenced contemporary Latin American writers like Alejandro Zambra, Valeria Luiselli, Sergio Pitol and Samanta Schweblin and prompted academic symposia at Harvard University, University of Oxford, Columbia University and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Translations appeared in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Japanese, produced by houses comparable to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Gallimard, Suhrkamp, Einaudi, Alfaguara, Utusan and Kodansha. Translators invoked precedents set by figures such as Gregory Rabassa, Edith Grossman, John Updike and Harold Bloom in commentary. Critical editions include annotated volumes in collections at Bibliothèque nationale de France, Library of Congress, British Library and Biblioteca Nacional de España.
Stage and radio adaptations have been mounted in venues such as Teatro Real, Royal Court Theatre, Comédie-Française and Teatro Colón, with filmmakers and composers likened to Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wim Wenders, Philip Glass and Ennio Morricone attached to projects. Academic and independent film collectives screened adaptations at festivals including Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, inspiring exhibitions at institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern and Museo Reina Sofía.
Category:Novels