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.

Natasha Wimmer is a translator of contemporary fiction and literary nonfiction. She is a regular visiting lecturer at Princeton University and Columbia University, and she has written reviews and criticism for The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, among other publications.

"Intoxicating . . . [A Little Lumpen Novelita] further cements [Bolaño] as a master of the form, of any form."
--Juan Vidal, NPR

"An electric jolt of a novel about urban youth, anomie, sex and crime . . . [A] dangerous little book."
--Marie Arana, The Washington Post

"Mysterious, claustrophobic, and haunting . . . It illuminates the borders of other ways of existing, and shows how easily the neatness of that existence can radically, suddenly, change."
--Stephenie Young, Asymptote

"Glorious . . . A glittering gem, as maddening and haunting as you'd expect from Bolaño."
--Gabe Habash, Publishers Weekly (starred review)