The Unknown University
Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Laura Healy
26 February 2015
9780330529976Synopsis
Perhaps surprisingly to some of his fiction fans, Roberto Bolaño touted poetry as the superior art form. When asked, 'What makes you believe you're a better poet than a novelist?' Bolaño replied, 'The poetry makes me blush less'.
In 1993, fearing for his health, Bolaño began collecting the poetry he had written since his arrival in Spain in 1977. This bilingual edition of The Unknown University represents the author's definitive work in his preferred medium.
With poems written in prose, stories in verse, and flashes of writing that can hardly be categorized, The Unknown University is a showcase of Bolaño's gift for freely crossing genres. It confirms once again the undeniable genius of this giant of Latin American literature.
A book filled with sorrows and joys and discoveries as Bolaño the poet takes up themes that are repeated often in his novels. For him, writers are men and women engaged in a sacred search, with poets the purest seekers of all. It's a pursuit that's all the more noble, given that Bolaño knows that the immortality writers seek is unattainableLos Angeles Times
In verse, as in prose, Bolaño leads us on journeys through a surreal landscape of exile, longing and nostalgia.Independent
