The Skating Rink

A major, retrospective launch of Roberto Bolaño's work - now published as a Vintage Classics author for the first time.

Dropped from the Olympic figure skating team, Nuria Marti's fate pivots her into a world of corruption, jealousy - and revenge.

Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old mansion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is he paid for it using public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene.

Narrated by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous civil servant, The Skating Rink is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives.

Translated by Chris Andrews

'A work of intense and unrealized longing' — The New York Times

'Bolaño makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' — Guardian