The Skating Rink

“One of the greatest and most influential modern writers.” —James Wood, The New York Times Book Review

“Bolaño is the real thing.” —n+1

In the quiet Spanish seaside town of Z, a horrific crime has been committed: a coldblooded murder on a secret ice rink in the abandoned Palacio Benvingut. Who has been killed, by whom, and why? A tense, taut, utterly gripping narrative emerges from the jagged memories and whispered testimonies of our suspects: Remo Morán, a once poet at the helm of Z’s tourist industry; Gaspar Heredia, another once poet Remo sets up with a night watchman job at a seedy local campground; and Enric Rosquelles, a corrupt civil servant and tortured romantic. And at the center of their orbit is the beautiful, iron-willed figure skater Nuria Martí, just dropped from the Spanish national team and desperate to reclaim her place. As these characters fatefully collide, this tale of obsession, corruption, passion, and violence builds toward its inevitable, bloody conclusion. Haunting and propulsive, Roberto Bolaño’s The Skating Rink is a noir like no other: one that exposes the darkest sides of human nature and then angles its knife toward our very notion of truth.

Author Biography

Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was the author of The Savage Detectives and 2666, among many other notable works. Born in Santiago, Chile, he later lived in Mexico City, Paris, and Barcelona. His accolades include the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He died at the age of fifty and is widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation.

Chris Andrews has translated books of prose fiction by César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, Liliana Colanzi, and Ágota Kristóf, among others. He is also the author of How to Do Things with Forms and The Oblong Plot.