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Bolano, Roberto (Author) & Healey, Laura (Translator) : The Unknown University

New Directions Books, New York City, NY, 2013

ISBN 0811219283

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 835 pages. Posthumous collection of the author's poetry. One of the most important literary events of our time. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only that sold out shortly after publication. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Roberto Bolano's "The Unknown University" in a felicitous English translation. All of Bolano's searing, beautiful poetry in a meticulously edited bilingual edition (the Spanish original on the left-hand page, the English translation en face). There is NO comparable edition in Spanish itself: Exhaustive and definitive, it gathers in one, 835-page volume, all of the five poetry collections Bolano published individually in his brief lifetime, plus poems found by his estate in his unpublished notebooks. As it turns out, contemporary literature's "patron saint" had "one of 20th-century literature's great dirty minds. Many of the best lines are unpublishable here. A handful of these poems are masterpieces" (The New York Times). The consistently high level of Bolano's virtuosity is almost miraculous when one sees it as having been achieved during a miserable personal life. It was as though he turned to literature not just to complement or complete but to change his life altogether. By the time of his untimely death in 2003 at the age of 50, Bolano was universally regarded as the greatest Spanish-language novelist of our time. But Bolano himself had hoped to be remembered for his poetry, which he gave up after his marriage and the birth of his child, deciding, quite rightly, that he was now responsible not just for himself, but for his family's future, and that it would be more realistic to earn a living by writing prose fiction. His admirers believe that like Borges, whom he considered to be the greatest Spanish writer of the 20th century, his prose was made possible by - and is an extension of - his poetry. If so, any definitive appraisal of his large body of work (written non-stop in little over a decade) must take into account his iridescent poetry. An absolute "must-have" title for Roberto Bolano collectors. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the First American Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERTO BOLANO TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0811219283.

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