The Skating Rink
Published on 5. September 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-78487-953-2 (ISBN)
Description
Dropped from the Olympic figure skating team, Nuria Marti's fate pivots her into a world of corruption, jealousy - and revenge.
Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old masion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is he paid for it using public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene.
Narrated by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous civil servant, The Skating Rink is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives.
TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS
'A work of intense and unrealized longing' The New York Times
'Bolano makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' Guardian
Cushioning her fall from grace, a besotted admirer builds a secret ice rink for her in the ruins of an old masion on the outskirts of their seaside town. What he doesn't tell her is he paid for it using public funds. Such deceit is not without repercussions, and the skating rink soon becomes a crime scene.
Narrated by a corrupt and pompous civil servant, a beleaguered romantic poet, and a duplicitous civil servant, The Skating Rink is a darkly atmospheric tale of murder and its motives.
TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS
'A work of intense and unrealized longing' The New York Times
'Bolano makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' Guardian
Reviews / Votes
The Skating Rink...like much of what [Bolano] wrote, leaves many new novels looking pretty bland. * The Observer * This Catalan drama sizzles with unrequited love and murderous ambition. * The Independent * [A] short, exquisite novel * The New York Times Book Review * A sizzling cocktail of sex, death and obsession set on the Costa Brava. * The Times * Elegant, elusive and amusing * Daily Telegraph * Roberto Bolano's work is a sprawling labyrinth of surprise, bold invention, and images that will live with you forever. Roberto Bolano was a game changer: his field was politics, poetry and melancholia . . . and his writing was always unparalleled Roberto Bolano offers a unique, multilayered and quirky perspective on contemporary life. * Daily Mail * One of the most respected and influential writers of his generation... At once funny and vaguely, pervasively, frightening. 'Latin American letters (wherever it may reside) has never had a greater, more disturbing avenging angel than Bolano.More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
148 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78487-953-2 (9781784879532)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Roberto Bolano was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealism poetry movement. Described by the New York Times as 'the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation', he was the author of over twenty works, including The Savage Detectives, which received the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998, and 2666, which posthumously won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Bolano died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty, just as his writing found global recognition.