Antwerp

Roberto Bolano — 2012

'A fascinating, even compulsory addition to the Bolaño fan's bookshelf . . . the sentences whizz over your head like bullets' Daily Telegraph Antwerp was Roberto Bolaño's first novel, though he chose not to publish it until 2002, more than twenty years after he'd written it. Set amidst the seedy hotels and deserted campsites on the Costa Brava, and filled with hapless girls, failed poets, and shifty policemen, Antwerp is a short and cinematic experimental crime novel spliced together with voices from a dream, from a nightmare, from passers-by, from an omniscient narrator, from 'Roberto Bolaño'. Intense and irrepressible, the novel is a personal declaration of the power of literature; reading it is to be present at the birth of Bolaño's enterprise in prose, to see the beginning, to witness the moment when his talent explodes. 'It's hard to think of a writer who has multiplied the possibilities more times than Roberto Bolaño' Nicole Krauss, Guardian

Reviews

Alex Noble@alexnoble

Dec 17, 2024

So hard. Bound to reread this soonest, out of everything I’ve read in the past several years, if I were to bet on what. Supremely frank the whole way through and then suddenly that beaten, optimistic postscript.

Eli Alvah Huckabee@elijah

Jun 17, 2024

The supposed inadvertent predecessor to the Nocilla Trilogy according to Mallo. And I believe him. It’s similar in form and zaniness, but very different in tone, delivery, and general content. I want really a fan of a lot of what was going on and how it was all spat out, but the idea is so cool and the prose/poetry (proetry?) was pretty boss. I get why Bolaño is so highly regarded and I get why he never submitted this because it wasn’t publishable. Ready to read 2666 now!

london@clubsandwich

Apr 3, 2024

Bolano was a poet first, novelist second, and in no work of his is that more apparent than Antwerp. Beautiful, haunting, slightly disjointed but always enjoyable.

michael mann@yeehawcowabunga

Jan 7, 2024

veeeery kooky and inspired. reminds me of invisible cities by calvino. i love latin american lit

Donald@riversofeurope

Feb 25, 2022

This is an extended prose poem separated into numbered sections. It is not a novel. What is this book about? Film (especially pornography), murder, police, violence, autobiography, writing, literature, sex, speech, Spain, foreignness. Kaput. There are a lot of themes and elements here that will be familiar to habitual Bolaño users, but this is the most structurally experimental work of his I've read. It works very well, in this biased obsever's opinion.

Nav Singh@nav67

Dec 21, 2023

Jeff Roche@jeffroche

Nov 10, 2023

Dilara Alemdar@dilaraalemdar

Nov 24, 2021

Trevor Berrett@mookse

Nov 10, 2021