The fiction maker

The late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño has enjoyed a successful posthumous career in the United States, thanks in no small part to the translations of his work by Chris Andrews, an Australian writer who teaches at the University of West Sydney. Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe (Columbia University Press, $30) offers insights into Bolaño's influences, his creation of a “fiction-making system” and the reception of his work among English-speaking readers. Although Andrews did correspond with Bolaño during the last year-and-a-half of his life, this isn't a biography. Instead, it's a sharp and accessible guide to the literary style and narrative skills of this amazing novelist.