Product Description
Woes of the True Policeman
Author: Roberto Bolaño
Format: Paperback
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 for ever. 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 the world and characters of 2666, Bolaño's masterpiece, Woes of the True Policeman explores the 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
About the Author
Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealism poetry movement. Described by the New York Times as ‘the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation’, he was the author of over twenty works, including The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998, and 2666, which posthumously won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty, just as his writing found global recognition.
For custom orders and quotes: shop@schoolspace.co.za
© 2026 Schoolspace. This product description is the exclusive intellectual property of the publisher, protected under copyright law. Unauthorized use, adaption, or copying is strictly prohibited.
