“Extraordinary . . . [
Bolaño’s]
greatest work.” —James Wood,
The New York Times
The book that catapulted Roberto Bolaño into international literary stardom,
By Night in Chile
is the final testimony of Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix—Chilean priest and member of Opus Dei, eminent literary critic and failed poet—as he is haunted by a shadowy figure from his past. In Urrutia’s feverish last hours, a deluge of memories pours from him: of hobnobbing with Santiago’s most unctuous literati; of undertaking a mission to save Europe’s decaying cathedrals from existential threat by pigeon excrement; of retreating into Greco-Roman poetry during the darkest chapter of modern Chilean history; of tutoring Augusto Pinochet in Marxist theory, so that the General may better understand his enemies. Throughout he insists, with fracturing conviction, that he was always on the right side of history. A novel about high art and fascism, silence and complicity, and, ultimately, the weight of damnation, Roberto Bolaño’s
is a deep-cutting satire and a work of devastating moral insight.