{"product_id":"last-evenings-on-earth-9780811216883","title":"Last Evenings on Earth","description":"\"The melancholy folklore of exile,\" as Roberto Bola?o once put it, pervades these fourteen haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime. These protagonists tend to take detours and to narrate unresolved efforts. They are characters living in the margins, often coming to pieces, and sometimes, as in a nightmare, in constant flight from something horrid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the short story \"Silva the Eye,\" Bola?o writes in the opening sentence: \"It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as The Eye, always tried to escape violence, even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around 20 years old when Salvador Allende died.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin America and Europe, and peopled by Bola?o's beloved \"failed generation,\" the stories of \u003cem\u003eLast Evenings on Earth\u003c\/em\u003e have appeared in \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eGrand Street\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBolaño, Roberto:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Author of \u003cem\u003e2666\u003c\/em\u003e and many other acclaimed works, \u003cstrong\u003eRoberto Bolano\u003c\/strong\u003e (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed \"by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time\" (Ilan Stavans, \u003cem\u003eThe Los Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e),\" and as \"the real thing and the rarest\" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAndrews, Chris:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - The poet \u003cstrong\u003eCHRIS ANDREWS\u003c\/strong\u003e teaches at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, where he is a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre. He has translated books by Roberto Bolano and César Aira for New Directions. He has won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for his poetry and the Valle-Inclan Prize and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for his translations.","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50617926942994,"sku":"9780811216883","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_61762a6e-09a2-4613-a590-9e5575380680.jpg?v=1732526684","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/last-evenings-on-earth-9780811216883","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}