Bolano's Sarcasm is Worth Some Thousands of Sales

Over at Conversational Reading, Scott put together a reading list based on Between Parentheses, Roberto Bolano’s essay collection, due out next month from New Directions. It’s an interesting list that includes Witold Gombrowicz, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Mario Vargas Llosa, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Ernesto Cardenal, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Philip K. Dick.

It also includes this statement about Macedonio Fernandez’s The Museum of Eterna’s Novel:

“Everything says we should read him, but Macedonio doesn’t sell, so forget him.

Well, now. That’s not exactly true. At least from my relativistic perspective where Macedonio was the best-selling Open Letter title until Zone zipped right past it like a train on fire (sorry) to claim the top spot. Nevertheless, we do have some more copies that are looking for readers, so I think everyone should prove Bolano wrong about the selling, and right about the everything saying we should read Macedonio.