In an interview, the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño once said: “The library is a metaphor for human beings or what’s best about human beings, the same way a concentration camp can be a metaphor for what is worst about them. A library is total generosity.”
This quote holds the key to Bolaño’s literary philosophy. He did not write to show off his intelligence or assert a worldview. He wrote it seems, to see – to pay attention – and to pass that attention on. And what he saw was everything.
Bolaño’s writing insists on the significance of the overlooked, the mundane, the forgotten, and the tragic. As readers, we are asked not simply to observe the world but to witness it. And in doing so, we confront a quietly radical insight: everything matters.
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FINN JANNING 