The Insufferable Gaucho

by Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews (Translator)

Overview

“Excellent . . . ‘The Insufferable Gaucho’ is one of Bolaño’s most powerful fictions.” —The New York Times Book Review

An aging Buenos Aires judge retires to the family ranch in the Pampas to battle feral rabbits and reclaim the dignity of the gaucho life. A detective investigates a series of grisly murders—among his fellow sewer rats. An obscure Argentinian novelist journeys to Paris to face down the filmmaker who has been plagiarizing his work for years. Riffing on Borges and Kafka yet utterly and inimitably Bolaño, the stories of The Insufferable Gaucho are a testament to his mastery of the short form. Plus: two of his most provocative and piercing essays, crackling with his signature black humor and incomparable powers of perception and critique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250898203
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	01/07/2025
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) was the author of The Savage Detectives and 2666, among many other notable works. Born in Santiago, Chile, he later lived in Mexico City, Paris, and Barcelona. His accolades include the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He died at the age of fifty and is widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation.

Chris Andrews has translated books of prose fiction by César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, Liliana Colanzi, and Ágota Kristóf, among others. He is also the author of How to Do Things with Forms and The Oblong Plot.

Editorial Reviews

Readers trying to navigate Bolaño's gathering body of work may find themselves wondering where to turn: since his death in 2003, 12 of his books have been published in the United States. The Insufferable Gaucho would be an excellent place to start. The title story of this collection is one of Bolaño's most powerful fictions.
—The New York Times

Michael Greenberg

Seven tales by the amazingly prolific-in-death Bolaño (2666) explore themes of self-exile and illness. The two best stories concern conflicted Argentinean protagonists; in the title story, Hector Pereda, "an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty," leaves Buenos Aires after the death of his wife and the collapse of the country's economy to make a go as a gaucho on the pampas. Inhabiting a ruined ranch, with only the languid locals and predatory rabbits as company, Hector finds a welcome, near-poetic restoration of a society where self-reliance and egalitarianism reign. In "Alvaro Rousselot's Journey," an acclaimed Argentinean novelist sets out for Paris to confront a filmmaker who has blatantly plagiarized his books, though what really eats at the novelist is that the filmmaker has ignored the writer's recent works, leaving him with the sense that "he had lost his best reader." "Rat Police" reflects Bolaño's interest in fantasy and noirish crime fiction, while "Literature + Illness = Illness" is essentially an essay about terminal illness. Andrews is an excellent translator, and even if these are somewhat lesser works in the Bolaño pantheon, completists will snap this up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Bolaño wrote with the high-voltage first-person braininess of a Saul Bellow and an extreme subversive vision of his own."

The New York Times Magazine - Francisco Goldman

"A spellbinder."

Newsweek

"An exemplary literary rebel."

The New York Review of Books - Sarah Kerr

Another volume extracted from Bolaño's extensive posthumous vault, this highly original but uneven collection of five stories and two essays perpetuates the typical idiosyncrasies of Bolaño's inimitable style. After the opening bagatelle, the eponymous second story, written with thematic strains of Borges, reverses the location of the traditional violent myth of the gaucho from the Argentine pampas to the city. Probably the most unusual contribution is "Rat Police," an allegorical narrative related by rats; after reading this short story, one wonders if Bolaño's creative soul is brilliant or warped. "Alvaro Rousselt's Journey" has as protagonists two of Bolaño's most characteristic types: the expatriate writer and the prostitute. The two-part final story, "Two Catholic Tales," does not measure up to the rest of the volume. The first of the two concluding essays tackles the relationship between literature and illness with fitting reverence to Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Kafka; the second, "The Myths of Chtulhu," is more desultory and off target. Both are esthetic brain dumps from Bolaño's creative but offbeat mind. VERDICT These short pieces hold the attention of readers, especially those who already know what to expect from Bolaño. For newcomers, these items come across as creative but bizarre.—Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH

Library Journal