Last Evenings on Earth

Last Evenings on Earth (Llamadas Telefonicas in Spanish) is a collection of short stories by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, published in 1997 with a translation into English by Chris Andrews published in 2006. The stories in this volume were selected from two Spanish language collections, Llamadas Telefonicas (1997), and Putas Asesinas (2001). The remaining stories in these two collections were later gathered in The Return.

Summary

Set amid the diaspora of Chilean exiles in Latin America and Europe, the fourteen stories in Last Evenings on Earth are peopled by Bolaño's beloved "failed generation" and demonstrate the complexities of and Latin American identity and history. The narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and often unlucky) quests, speaking in the first person as if giving a deposition—like witnesses to a crime. These protagonists tend to take detours and narrate unresolved efforts. They are characters living at the margins. Other stories find themselves narrated in the third person by the author "B.", which is one of many cases of Bolaño writing himself into his own fiction.

"Sensini"

The unnamed narrator comes in fourth in a short story contest. In the collection of finalists, he reads a story by Luis Antonio Sensini. He begins a correspondence with the much-older writer. When Sensini moves back to Argentina, the two stop writing each other. After Sensini dies, his daughter Miranda visits the narrator.

"A Literary Adventure"

The author B writes a book which includes a mocking portrayal of another, and far more famous, author - A. to B's surprise A writes a positive review of B's book, and B is left to wonder the possible implications of this. After a second book by B receives a long, considered and insightful review by A, B decides that he has to meet him.

"The Grub"

Seventeen-year-old Arturo Belano spends his days in Mexico City browsing bookstores and watching movies. He strikes up an odd friendship with a man, whom he calls "the grub" ("El Gusano") who sits on the same bench every day, doing nothing. The character of the grub, "with his straw hat and a Bali cigarette hanging from his bottom lip" is also the subject of Bolaño's poem of the same name ("El Gusano" in Spanish, though translated as "the Worm" rather than "the Grub" in Laura Healy's translation of The Romantic Dogs)

"Gómez Palacio"

A 23-year-old poet becomes a creative writing teacher in the town of Gómez Palacio and goes on a strange car-ride with the director of the writing program.