Nazi Literature in the Americas

The title chosen by Bolaño (1953–2003) for this slim, fake encyclopedia is not wholly tongue-in-cheek: given the very real presence of former (and not-so-former) Nazis in Latin America following WWII, this book, despite being fiction, still had j´accuse-like power when first published in 1996. The poets described herein, though invented, seem—even at their most absurd—plausible, which is the secret to this sly book´s devastating effect. And as one proceeds from an entry on Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce (In high spirits, Edelmira asked for the Führer´s advice: which would be the most appropriate school for her sons?) to one on Carlos Ramírez Hoffman (His passage through literature left a trail of blood and several questions posed by a mute), it becomes clear that there is a single witness to all of these terrible figures, one who has spent time in one of Pinochet´s prisons and is bent on coolly totting up the crimes of fascism´s literary perpetrators. Some readers will recognize figures and episodes from Bolaño´s other books (including The Savage Detectives and Distant Star). The wild inventiveness of Bolaño´s evocations places them squarely in the realm of Borges—another writer who draws enormous power from the movement between the fictive and the real.