A review by tmackell
Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño

5.0

Ignacio Echevarría calling this "the Big Bang of Bolaño’s fictional universe" is really apt. You can see a lot of his recurrent themes developing here, but also some incredibly raw and violent bursts of the prose-poetry of a young guy; horny, desperate, pessimistic, but also still young enough to think that art and beauty are the most important things in the world. Written when he was pretty much the same age as I am now, so it really hits partially for that reason but also for just how vivid, dream-like and evocative all of this is. So inspiring. The introduction Bolaño wrote for this is great too, very revealing