Chilean nocturne

A short novel. The dark testament of a guilty conscience. Narrated in the first person by a literary critic, priest, and collaborator of the Pinochet regime. A long confession that blends memory, delirium, and self-defense.

There have always been, in history, "men of their time" who turned a blind eye, looked the other way, bowed their heads, and reaped the rewards. 

A warning about how easily thought accommodates itself to power, and how complicity with barbarism is but a small step away. A personal narrative that gradually transforms into a collective portrait: that of a generation of writers, artists, and priests who chose silence in the name of security or convenience.

To remind us that intelligence, when severed from ethics, leaves us blind and, over time, dangerous.

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) was one of the most important writers in contemporary Latin American literature. Chilean by birth, he lived in Mexico and Spain, dedicating himself first to poetry before achieving international recognition as a novelist. His body of work, which includes The Savage Detectives, 2666, and Nazi Literature in the Americas, combines formal rigor, irony, and a profound moral unease.