Postmodernism of Resistance in Roberto Bolaño’s Fiction and Poetry

Description

Postmodernism of Resistance in Roberto Bolaño's Fiction and Poetry examines the ways in which Bolaño employs a type of literary aesthetics that subverts traits traditionally associated with postmodernism. Pastén B. coins these aesthetics "postmodernism of resistance" and argues that this resistance stands in direct opposition to critical discourses that construe the presence of hopeless characters and marginal settings in Bolaño's works as signs of the writer's disillusionment with the political as a consequence of the defeat of the Left in Latin America. Rather, he contends, Bolaño creates a fictional world comprised of characters and situations that paradoxically refuse to accept defeat--even while displaying the scars of terrible historical events. In this work Pastén B. challenges some critical assumptions about Bolaño's fiction and poetry that led to decontextualized interpretations of his work and offers a singularly comprehensive investigation that synthesizes multiple perspectives of a complicated author into one text. Cover Half title Title Copyright Table of Contents Acknowledgments A note on the text Chapter 1. Introduction and Theorectical Background Chapter 2. An Engaged Postmodern Poet’s Three-pronged Line of Defense Chapter 3. The Detective Genre: A Hero with Multiple Faces Chapter 4. History, Nomadic Gatherings, and Territory in Bolaño’s Short Stories Chapter 5. The Republic of Letters’ Trials and Tribulations Chapter 6. Literature and Disenchantment Chapter 7. 2666: Historical Hauntings and Capitalism’s Dark Side Conclusion Notes Books by Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Works Cited Index