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"FacebookPinterest\n\nUnfortunately, Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o had already died\u2014in 2003, due to a long period of declining health complicated by liver failure.\n\nAmericans enthusiastically embraced those two novels, but it should also be known that the small publishing house, New Directions, has been putting out the vast majority of his other books since shortly after Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o's death. Antwerp, a dream-like collection of fifty-six vignettes about sex, love, murder, cops, and outcasts, was published last month. Next up: The Return, a collection of stories, out in July. GQ spoke to Barbara Epler, New Direction's editor in chief, about Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o's rise to fame.\n\nNew Directions was the first house to publish a Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o novel in the United States\u2014back in 2003. How did you discover him?\n\n Seven or eight years ago, I had a drink with the novelist Francisco Goldman, who was living part-time in Mexico City, and he told me how all the young novelists down there were reading Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o. I have a cocktail napkin with stars all around his name.\n\nThat's crazy. You first heard about him over a drink? Antwerp, which you've just published, is his first novel. It's a disturbing, disjointed crime story. It's also poetic and beautiful. \n\n What his literary ecutor, Ignacio Echevarr&amp;amp;#xED;a, said about it being Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o's \"big bang\" is apt. It's also intriguing that he wrote it more than twenty years before he published it. \n\nI have to ask about this quote on the back of the book. Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o said that Antwerp is \"the only novel that doesn't embarrass me.\" Really? \n\n It's from his famous Mexican Playboy interview. I lopped off the second half where he said it's \"because [the book] continues to be unintelligible.\"\n\n New Directions has now published nine Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o books, though not the two biggest novels, 2666 and The Savage Detectives. FSG published those. What's the story there?\n\n It was just before Thanksgiving 2004 when our president and me went out to dinner with the agents for Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o's estate. I asked if we could buy everything. I made my offer with big puppy eyes. But for those two books they wanted a house with a larger marketing department, which was a painful truth. But we got everything we could.\n\nBoth 2666 and Savage were major successes. Do you think big, long novels resonate more with Americans as opposed to the shorter ones you've put out? \n\n 2666 is amazing. It's a totally great romp. But I have a real feeling for the small, evil, and clock-like precision of By Night in Chile. It's a toss up between the crowd who thinks it's the masterpiece and those who think it's 2666. \n\nYou have good radar. Who's the next big writer that we haven't heard of yet?\n\n C\u00E9sar Aira, the Argentine writer we've been publishing. Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o called him \"the incredible C\u00E9sar Aira.\" We just bought eight more of his books. If we think someone is great, we stick with them, and with Bola&amp;amp;#xF1;o success happened in a dramatic, big way. I think it's going to happen with Aira, too."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/roberto-bolao-literary-lion-cash-cow>