Description

After devouring 2666 by Roberto Bolaño on the New York City subway, Jonathan Russell Clark does what any good literary critic would do—he reads everything by Bolaño he can get his hands on. But the more he learns about the writer’s unlikely life, the less it makes sense. Bolaño cultivated ambiguities and false identities, almost as if he were laying a trap for his future biographers. Clark’s investigation into Bolaño’s magnum opus is a stumble through a labyrinth where fiction and self-mythologizing converge.

Jonathan Russell Clark is a contributing editor at Literary Hub and a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and Read It Forward. His work has also appeared inTin House, The Atlantic, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Millions, Rolling Stone, and LA Review of Books.

“A Sontag-worthy encapsulation of another writer.” —Christopher Wood, The Quarterly Conversation

“If you have read 2666 and loved it, like most people who’ve read 2666, then AN OASIS OF HORROR IN A DESERT OF BOREDOM is something of a must-read.” —D. F. Lovett

About the Series