Nazi Literature in the Americas

Read from Saturday, September 17th to Monday, September 19th.

Nazi Literature in the Americas, by Roberto Bolano.  This is an interesting collection of stories by one of my favorite authors.  Each short story is set up like an encyclopedia article about a fictitious right wing author living in the Americas during the past century.  Bolano gives a biography of each author, and a catalog and description of all their major work.  In this fictional world, the authors in each chapter sometimes interact with one another, and sometimes they interact with real-life characters as well.

It is fiction dressed up in a non-fiction format, which is very interesting.  And it is also misleading to say that all the authors are Nazis.  They are all right-leaning, and some fought for the Nazis or for Franco in Spain.  But some are just conspiracy theorists railing against the communist governments.  Their writing is all influenced by their political beliefs though, which is an overriding connection.  The genre of writing is different as well.  Some are novelists, some poets, some write crazy science fiction, and some write essays on philosophers.  One of my favorites was an author who wrote poetry in the sky using the smoke from a plane. 

An interesting, quick read by Bolano, something completely different from his massive 2666.  I enjoyed it, and felt a little empathy for some of these outrageous authors, which shows how good his writing can be.  The narrator sees things from an impartial omniscient third person, but Bolano throws in tender moments that offer tremendous insight into each character.  Three out of five stars.