One of the greatest Latin American writers of the turn of the 21st Century, Roberto Bolaño has unfortunately only been known to English readers since his premature death, at the age of 50, to liver disease. His two most famous works here in America, 2666 and The Savage Detectives, are massive, complex novels filled with weighty themes and intricate plots. Fortunately for teens, then, the year before he died, he published this very brief, narratively straightforward novella which nevertheless contains many of the same themes and contrivances that make his longer work so enriching.

Coincidentally, A Little Lumpen Novelita also features a teenaged narrator and a strange-but-recognizable coming-of-age plot. There’s no question that Bolaño’s style, and refusal to resolve ambiguities will be off-putting to some readers, whether teens or adults, but I for one read it in a single sitting and have been thinking about it fairly frequently in the months since I first encountered it.

Note: I quite like the lovely photograph that adorns the English translation–but check out the original cover art.

BOLAÑO, Roberto. A Little Lumpen Novelita. 128p. New Directions. tr. from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer. Sept. 2014. Tr $19.95. ISBN 9780811223355.

Originally published in Spanish the year before Bolaño’s death, this perfectly titled “novelita” begins with a shocking, but ultimately misleading statement from the narrator: “Now I’m a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime.” After her brother and she are orphaned as teenagers and left to their own devices, living in a small house in Rome, Bianca’s “life of crime” begins when her brother and two friends concoct a bizarre plan to rob a wealthy former movie star. Bianca is to seduce him and use her access to his house to find a hypothetical safe filled with riches. But the protagonist  never searches for the safe more than half-heartedly, and eventually comes to believe that it doesn’t exist. Instead, she forms a bond with the overweight, blind, aging man she is supposedly duping. Rather than a story of crime, this novelita is a classic, if off-kilter, story of teen dislocation: Bolaño captures perfectly the ennui and confusion of a teenaged girl being thrust into the world of work, money, and sex before she is able to understand it. And the extra layers of orphanhood, economic distress, and cultural differences help to magnify and clarify the decisions Bianca must make and their ultimate consequences. An excellent introduction to Bolaño for teens.—Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA