2666

2666 is the novel Roberto Bolaño left almost finished when he died in 2003, published the next year. It is five books in one, meant to stand alone but printed together. They circle, from different angles, a wave of real-life murders of women in a fictional Mexican border city. One follows critics chasing a vanished German author. One follows a professor losing his grip. The longest is a flat, relentless catalogue of the killings themselves. It is long, demanding, and does not resolve. The Natasha Wimmer translation is the standard English text.