Roberto Bolańo’s fiction is timeless. He reflects, interprets and explores the nuances of contemporary cultures with humor, sensitivity, and character sketches as intimate as the looks of lovers after copulation. At the same time, his stories strip away the pretense of civilization with which those in power like to hide their murderous intentions and brutal actions. That’s why your novel Night in Chile It contains the dying thoughts of a Catholic priest who was secretly or otherwise complicit with the Western Hemisphere’s most notorious modern dictatorship. The Pinochet regime in Chile, established with the active support of the United States, the CIA, and a half-dozen U.S.-based corporate entities, was fascist through and through. The priest’s acceptance of the regime, and even his participation in it, can be interpreted as a comment on the participation and benefit of those in Chile’s ruling cliques. Widening the network of complicity, this incident should be seen as an indictment of the role of those in the north, whose involvement was both deep and brutal.

First published in Spanish in 2000, the first English translation of the novel was published three years later. Recently Picador released a new edition featuring a new introduction by Nicole Krauss. The protagonist of the novel is Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix. A Catholic priest whose membership in Opus Dei suggests a traditionalist or even fascist approach to Catholicism. Better known as a famous literary critic, the text is a journey through the memories of the priest on his deathbed. The reader follows his fragmented memories as he recalls a trip to Europe to look at the damage done to old Catholic cathedrals by pigeons and their poop. He discovers that the solution chosen by most priests (guardians of ancient structures) is to use trained falcons, which kill smaller birds and scare others away while doing so. The seemingly comical hawks’ destructive drive takes a wrong turn when a church hawk kills a bird that is the mascot of a local sports team. Like many attempts by humans to control the world around them, the hawk project becomes a new problem to solve.

After returning to Chile, Father Lacroix begins attending parties at a house ostensibly owned by a couple: a Chilean woman named Mariá Canales and her husband Jimmy Thompson. The couple has two children, with whom the priest chats at these meetings until they are taken to bed. It’s unclear exactly what Ms. Canales does for a living beyond being a mother and hosting gatherings at her home. meetings They appear to be an attempt to legitimize Pinochet’s fascist dictatorship and the coup that brought him to power. Of course, there are plenty of artists, writers, and hangers-on who are willing to side with those they believe will give them power and possibly even fame. As for Big Jimmy Thompson, the narrator has his priest tell the reader that he disappeared for weeks, making people think he worked for a US company. But after a party guest gets lost in the house’s labyrinthine basement and discovers a room where torture victims languish in darkness and pain, his real reason for living in Chile becomes clear. The torture of Pinochet’s opponents was a well-known fact, not talked about in polite society. In other words, this was evaluated almost the same way as the dark operations of the government were evaluated in every state; the killing of civilians by the police, the torture of prisoners and rebels by intelligence agencies and mercenaries, and the deliberate killing of civilians by the state in pursuit of those it sees as a threat.

Father Lacroix’s deathbed memoirs reveal the collapse of power and the similarities between the Church hierarchy and the state. His rejection of feelings towards opponents of fascism and the fear he feels in the presence of dictator Pinochet highlight the human nature of the Church while diminishing its divine identity. This raises questions about believers who claim to believe God’s word and have a similar allegiance to their national leaders. Likewise, it suggests corruption built into a church that identifies with reactionary politicians and their assumptions of superiority. Written in a language that at times transcends the ordinary circumstances he depicts, the magnificence of Bolańo’s storytelling allows the reader to absorb a larger story than what is written on the pages of the book.