He almost immediately became a highly regarded figure in Spanish and Latin American letters. Although Bolaño espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible for all his adult life, he only began to produce substantial works of fiction in the 1990s. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."Īlthough deep down he always felt like a poet, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections.
In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment. Regarding his native country Chile, which he visited just once after going into voluntary exile, Bolaño had conflicted feelings. This was confirmed by Jorge Herralde, who explained that Bolaño "abandoned his parsimonious beatnik existence" because the birth of his son in 1990 made him "decide that he was responsible for his family's future and that it would be easier to earn a living by writing fiction." However, he continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a collection of his verse, spanning 20 years, was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs. In an interview Bolaño stated that he made this decision because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. He continued with his poetry, before shifting to fiction in his early forties.
Bolaño moved to Europe in 1977, and finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, bellhop and garbage collector - working during the day and writing at night. For most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain.
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