Woes of the True Policeman

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

When Oscar Amalfitano begins an affair with one of his students, he has no idea where it will lead. More than his turbulent revolutionary past, or the death of his beautiful wife, the scandalous exposure of this relationship will change him forever. Forced to flee Barcelona with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Amalfitano finds himself in Santa Teresa, a sprawling, mythical town on the Mexico-US border, populated by mysterious characters and haunted by dark tales of murdered women.

Returning to the world and characters of 2666, Bolaño's masterpiece, Woes of the True Policeman explores the power of art, memory, and desire - and marks a kaleidoscopic, lyrical, and darkly humorous last act in one of the great oeuvres of world literature.

TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER

'Hallucinatory, manic, fearful, comic... Bolaño must be read by anyone who loves the novel' - Herald

'We savour all he has written as every offering is a portal into the elaborate terrain of his genius' - Patti Smith