Amulet (New Directions Paperbook) - Softcover

Bolaño, Roberto; Andrews, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811217469 ISBN 13: 9780811217460

Publisher: New Directions, 2008

Synopsis

Amulet is a monologue, like Bolano's acclaimed debut in English, By Night in Chile. The speaker is Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico in the 1960s, becoming the "Mother of Mexican Poetry," hanging out with the young poets in the cafés and bars of the University. She's tall, thin, and blonde, and her favorite young poet in the 1970s is none other than Arturo Belano (Bolano's fictional stand-in throughout his books).

As well as her young poets, Auxilio recalls three remarkable women: the melancholic young philosopher Elena, the exiled Catalan painter Remedios Varo, and Lilian Serpas, a poet who once slept with Che Guevara. And in the course of her imaginary visit to the house of Remedios Varo, Auxilio sees an uncanny landscape, a kind of chasm. This chasm reappears in a vision at the end of the book: an army of children is marching toward it, singing as they go. The children are the idealistic young Latin Americans who came to maturity in the '70s, and the last words of the novel are: "And that song is our amulet."

About this title

Review:

The most influential and admired novelist of his generation in the Spanish-speaking world.--Susan Sontag

He is by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time.--Ilan Stavans

Bolaño's reputation and legend are in meteoric ascent.--Larry Rohter

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

Book Description:

Latin American poetry and revolutionary thoughts are narrated by the 'Mother of Mexican poetry' in Roberto Bolaño's Amulet.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0811217469
• ISBN 13: 9780811217460
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192