Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

RB:I am sure, dear Maristain, that I will not win it, as I am sure that some lazy person from my generation will win it and not even in passing mention me during his or her Stockholm speech.

MM:When were you the happiest?

RB:I have been happy almost every day of my life, except for short periods, including during the most adverse circumstances.

MM:If you hadn’t been a writer, what would you have been?

RB:I should like to have been a homicide detective much better than being a writer. I am absolutely sure of that. A string of homicides. I’d have been someone who could come back to the scene of the crime alone, by night, and not be afraid of ghosts. Perhaps then I might really have become crazy. But being a detective, that could easily be resolved with a bullet to the mouth.

MM:Do you confess to having lived?

RB:Well, I continue to live, to read, to write and to watch films, and as Arturo Pratsaid to the suicides of Esmeralda, “While I am still alive, this flag will not come down.”

A Chilean naval officer, Arturo Prat (1848–1879) is a national hero in Chile.

ROBERTO BOLAÑO(1950–2003) was a Chilean poet, novelist, and essayist. His translated work includes Amulet, By Night in Chile, Distant Star, Nazi Literature in the Americas, The Savage Detectives, 2666, Last Evenings on Earth, The Romantic Dogs , and The Skating Rink . His last years were spent in Blanes, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

Interviewers HÉCTOR SOTOand MATÍAS BRAVOinterviewed Bolaño for the Chilean magazine Capital . Both were writers for the magazine; Soto was also a co-owner.

Interviewer CARMEN BOULLOSA’s 2002 interview with Bolaño appeared in Bomb , a Brooklyn-based arts and culture magazine. Boullosa is a highly regarded Mexican novelist, poet, essayist, and television personality. She is the co-host of the respected Spanish-language television program Nueva York . An essay Bolaño wrote about Boullosa, entitled “Biena y la sombra de una mujer,” appears in Entre parentesis , forthcoming in English from New Directions.

ELISEO ÁLVAREZinterviewed Bolaño shortly before his death. The interview was published posthumously in 2005 by the Barcelona literary journal Turia .

The final interview given by Bolaño appeared in the Mexican edition of Playboy magazine in July 2003. It was conducted via e-mail by MÓNICA MARISTAINwho, at the time, was the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Maristain is an Argentine editor, journalist, and writer. In 1992 she was named journalist of the year in Argentina for her coverage of the Barcelona Olympics. She has written for various national and international media outlets and published two books of poetry, Transfusiones al óleo and Drinking Thelonious . She lives in Mexico.

MARCELA VALDESis a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly and the books editor for The Washington Examiner . In 2000, she co-founded Críticas , a U.S. magazine devoted to the coverage of Spanish-language books, and in 2009 she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship in Arts & Culture Journalism at Harvard University. Her writing appears regularly in The Washington Post and The Nation , among other publications.

Translator SYBIL PEREZ, a native of Chicago, is an editor at Stop Smiling magazine, a post she has held for over ten years.