Roberto Bolaño - The Unknown University (Picador, 2013) ****

"The Unknown University" is a book of more than 800 pages, offering a collection of poems and texts that Bolaño wrote over the years, and found on his computer by his heirs. They decided to publish it as it was. The book comes with the original Spanish on the left page and the English translation on the right. This is fun, and it shows the freedom and creativity and insight of the translators.

His poems are all his own, little stories about crime and themes that come out of movies, or that could develop into movies, short reflections, melancholy moments, moments of fear and existential angst.

The book again demonstrates the formidable work energy that Bolaño had, producing words and sentences and texts in huge quantities. Many of the scraps of texts are possibly building blocks for new stories, possibly just short texts who can stand on their own, or as part of a string of like-minded texts that are sprinkled throughout the book. Obviously you cannot read this as a book. Keep it on your coffee table and read one poem or one text a day. It will keep you busy for a while. And fascinated.