| The Skating Rink Contributor(s): Bolaño, Roberto (Author), Andrews, Chris (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0811217132 ISBN-13: 9780811217132 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation OUR PRICE: $19.76 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 2009 Annotation: A hair-raising book that delivers Bolano's signature mix of mordant wit and romantic tenderness, "The Skating Rink" is both a thriller and a love story. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Thrillers - Suspense - Fiction | Political - Fiction | Literary |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2009010724 |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.6" W x 8" (0.80 lbs) 208 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Set in the seaside town of Z, on the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink oscillates between two poles: a camp ground and a ruined mansion, the Palacio Benvingut. The story, told by three male narrators, revolves around a beautiful figure skating champion, Nuria Martí. When she is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a pompous but besotted civil servant secretly builds a skating rink in the ruined Palacio Benvingut, using public funds. But Nuria has affairs, provokes jealousy, and the skating rink becomes a crime scene. A mysterious pair of women, an ex-opera singer and a taciturn girl often armed with a knife, turn up as well. A complex book, The Skating Rink's short chapters are skillfully broken off with questions to maintain the narrative tension: Who was murdered? Who was the murderer? Will the murderer be caught? All of these questions are answered, and yet The Skating Rink is not fundamentally a crime novel, or not exclusively; it's also about political corruption, sex, the experience of immigration, and frustrated passion. And it's an atmospheric chronicle of one summer season in a seaside town, with its vacationers, its drifters, its businessmen, bureaucrats and social workers. |
Contributor Bio(s): Andrews, Chris: - The poet Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, where he is a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre. He has translated books by Roberto Bolaño and César Aira for New Directions. He has won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for his poetry and the Valle-Inclan Prize for his translations.Bolano, Roberto: - Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50. |