The insufferable gaucho / Roberto Bolaño ; translated by Chris Andrews

Originally published in Spain in 2003 as El gaucho insufrible.

Includes five stories, two essays.

The insufferable gaucho -- Rat police -- çlvaro Rousselot's Journey -- Two Catholic tales -- Literature + Illness = Illness -- The myths of Chtulhu.

Seven tales explore themes of self-exile and illness. Two concern conflicted Argentinean protagonists; in the title story, Hector Pereda, "an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty," leaves Buenos Aires after the death of his wife and the collapse of the country's economy to make a go as a gaucho on the pampas. Inhabiting a ruined ranch, with only the languid locals and predatory rabbits as company, Hector finds a welcome, near-poetic restoration of a society where self-reliance and egalitarianism reign. In "Alvaro Rousselot's Journey," an acclaimed Argentinean novelist sets out for Paris to confront a filmmaker who has blatantly plagiarized his books, though what really eats at the novelist is that the filmmaker has ignored the writer's recent works, leaving him with the sense that "he had lost his best reader." "Rat Police" reflects Bolano's interest in fantasy and noirish crime fiction, while "Literature + Illness = Illness" is essentially an essay about terminal illness.

Translated from the Spanish