Reading List: Antwerp

Antwerp
by Roberto Bolano

For the most part, Bolano specialized in novella-length books (Savage Detectives and 2666, obviously, being the exceptions). Antwerp is practically the rule. It's probably also the book Bolano himself was most proud of, and most attached to, holding onto it for some twenty years. The story is made up on fifty-six installments, making it perhaps an ideal example to sell Bolano on to even the most skeptical readers. This is exactly the kind of reading the most begrudging student should be exposed to (an irony, since Bolano was a voracious student of literature).