The first biography of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolao, the author of the international bestsellers TheSavage Detectives and 2666How to know the man behind works of fiction so prone to extravagance? In the first biography of Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolao, journalist Monica Maristain tracks Bolao from his childhood in Chile to his youth in Mexico and his early infatuation with literature, to years of tremendous literary productivity in Spain, and to his untimely death and the posthumous and unprecedented stardom that came with the international publication of his novels The Savage Detectives and 2666.Bolao: A Biography in Conversations is assembled from a series of rich interviews with the people who knew Bolao best: we meet Bolao's first publisher, who printed 225 copies of his first book of poetry; are introduced to his parents and an array of childhood friends, who watched a precocious young man turn into an obsessive writer who barely left the house; and witness the birth of Bolao's famed Infrarealist literary movement. The book also sheds new light on aspects of Bolao's life taht have long been shrouded in mystery: for the first time, we learn the details of his final illness and the drama of his final days.Throughout the book, Maristain present an image far removed from the stereotypes that have been created over the years, with the aim of reintroducing the man whose works grabbed readers worldwide. Maristain writes as a journalist and admirer, impressed with the power of Bolao's prose and the cool irony with which he faced the literary world.From the Hardcover edition.