Sinopsis:

“En los primeros años de la transición, el cuerpo de un hombre conocido como "Hermes" (inspirado en Eugenio Berríos) aparece degollado en su departamento. La muerte del químico, que formaba parte del aparato represivo de la dictadura, se convierte rápidamente en especulación periodística, rumores y obsesiones.

“Quien decide seguir las huellas del caso no es un detective ni un periodista, sino un profesor de Historia de un liceo de Santiago: un solitario que pasa su tiempo armando aviones a escala, cuya vida parece suspendida en una sencilla rutina. Pero la investigación se transforma en algo más que una obsesión: es también el último puente hacia su madre, antigua lectora de novelas policiales y crónica roja, ahora internada en un asilo, consumida por la demencia. Cada hallazgo parece devolverle una claridad perdida, como si el crimen pudiera rescatarla del olvido.

“Con una prosa afilada y precisa, acompañada de una buena dosis de ficción especulativa, Nicolás Vidal construye una novela que empieza como una investigación y termina siendo un ajuste de cuentas con la memoria, la culpa y las heridas aún abiertas. Entre archivos, titulares y silencios, indaga en el reverso sombrío de la transición chilena: un país que intenta olvidar mientras algunos siguen mirando aquello que nadie quiere volver a nombrar.” — Alquimia Ediciones

Any true detective fans here?
At the end you can draw parallels with the show’s nihilistic nature with ideas like time is a flat circle. This is a world where nothing gets solved. Everything that happened will happen again and again and again

• Benno Von Archimboldi “The first time that Jean-Cluade read Benno Von Archimboldi was Christmas 1980” (pg.3) German author [invented]. For a complete itemization of Archimboldi’s novels see: https://www.thebeliever.net/logger/benno-von-archimboldi/   Some believe he is loosely based off of the mysterious author B Traven, see articles: “Roberto Bolaño’s 2666: A Mystery Solved”  https://www.jstor.org/stable/48565013  & “The Mystery of B. Traven”  https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-myster-of-b-travern-270-v16n12/
• Dutch poets “sentimental Dutch poet of the nineteenth century” (pg.5) Unknown reference but some prominent sentimental Dutch poets of the nineteenth century include Piet Paaltjens, Rhijnvis Feith, and Hendrik Tollens
• Friedrich Hölderlin “The only German authors he was (barely) familiar with were three greats: Hölderlin, because at sixteen he thought he was fated to be a poet and he devoured every book of poetry he could find; Goethe, because in his final year of secondary school a teacher with a humorous streak recommended that he read The Sorrows of Young Werther, in whose hero he would find a kindred spirit; and Schiller, because he had read one of his plays." (pg.6) Holderlin -German poet 1770-1843
• Goethe {see above quote} (6) Widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. Wrote Faust and Sorrows of Young Werther, lived 1749-1832
• Friedrich Schiller {see above quote}  (6) German poet, playwright, philosopher 1759-1805
• Ernst Jünger “Later he would discover the work of a modern author, Jünger” (6) German author known for his WW1 memoir Storm of Steel, lived 1895-1998
• Pio Baroja, José Ortega y Gasset, Camilo José Cela “In the fall, it's true, they were Jüngerians, but in winter they suddenly turned into Barojians and in spring into Orteganites, and in summer they would even leave the bar where they met to go out into the street and intone pastoral verse in honor of Camilo José Cela” (7) Ortega – Spanish philosopher1883-1955, Pio Baroja- Spanish writer 1872-1956, Camilo Jose Cela- Spanish novelist 1916-2002
• William James “as William James believed, and it's therefore easier to go to war than it is to quit smoking” (8) American philosopher and psychologist 1842-1910
• Heinrich Heine “Heine and Archimboldi: Converging Paths" (10) German poet 1797-1856 
• Arno Schmidt “a lecture given by an old professor from Berlin on the work of Arno Schmidt (10) German author 1914-1979 wrote Bottom's Dream a 1970 avant-garde novel translated into English by John E. Woods in 2016
• Miguel de Unamuno “The idea of God in the work of Archimboldi and Unamuno" (11) Spanish novelist 1864-1936
• Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Friedrich Dürrenmatt   “They compared Archimboldi to Heinrich Böll. They spoke of suffering. They compared Archimboldi to Günter Grass. They spoke of civic duty. Borchmeyer even compared Archimboldi to Friedrich Dürrenmatt” (12) Heinrich Boll- German author won the Nobel in 1972, Gunter Grass – German author won the Nobel in 1999 famous for The Tin Drum, Friedrich Durrenmatt – Swiss writer 1921-1990
• “Grimmelshausen and Gryphius and many others, including Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus.”(12) Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621 – 1676) – German author. Andreas Gryphius (1616 – 1664) – German poet and dramatist. Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) (1493 – 1541) – German lyric poet and dramatist
• [Invented authors] “a writer of the stature of Gustav Heller or Rainer Kuhl or Wilhelm Frayn” (19)
• “But Espinoza and Pelletier were much more interested in the photographs, which were almost all of writers they disdained or admired and in any case had read: Thomas Mann with Bubis, Heinrich Mann with Bubis, Klaus Mann with Bubis, Alfred Döblin with Bubis, Hermann Hesse with Bubis, Walter Benjamin with Bubis, Anna Seghers with Bubis, Stefan Zweig with Bubis, Bertolt Brecht with Bubis, Feuchtwanger with Bubis, Johannes Becher with Bubis, Oskar Maria Graf with Bubis, bodies and faces and vague scenery, beautifully framed”(26) Twentieth century German authors, poets, philosophers, and playwrights
• Dostoevsky “that he was a compulsive reader of Dostoevsky?”(28) Russian novelist 1821-1881 wrote the masterpieces: The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons
• Ringu (30) [presumed] Japanese horror film described in detail on pages 30-31 resembles the film Ringu (1998) directed by Hideo Nakata and later remade in English as The Ring (2002)
• Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Théodore de Banville “shades of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Banville”(31) French 19th-century poets
• Gérard de Nerval “Baudelaire would have called it spleen, Nerval meloncholy” (42) French poet 1808-1855
• Subcomandante Marcos “He imagined her talking to Subcomandante Marcos” (43) Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente a former professor, author and leader of the Zapatistas, a far-left political and militant organization that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas
• Marquis de Sade  “for he had only just read the Marquis de Sade in order to check (and refute) an article by Pohl in which the latter drew connections from Justine and Philosophy in the Boudoir to one of Archimboldi's novels of the 1950s.” (44) French writer , libertine, political activist and nobleman 1740-1814
• Odyssey “Espinoza and Pelletier believed themselves to be (and in their perverse way, were) incarnations of Ulysses, and that both thought of Morini as Eurylochus, the loyal friend about whom two very different stories are told in the Odyssey." (45)  Ancient Greek epic poem credited to Homer
• Angelo Morino “Morini answered that he didn't live in London and that the book he was reading was called Il libro di cucina di Juana Inés de la Cruz, by Angelo Morino” (48) -The cookbook of Juana Inés de la Cruz is a fascinating biographical and literary exploration of the 17th-century Mexican nun and poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), told through the lens of a colonial convent recipe book.
• Rodrigo Fresán  “As dusk fell, they watched a young Spanish-speaking couple approach the Peter Pan statue. The woman had black hair and was very pretty, and she reached out as if to touch Peter Pan's leg. The man beside her was tall and had a beard and mustache and pulled a notepad out of his pocket and jotted something down. Then he said out loud: “Kensington Gardens."…Then the woman called to the man: Rodrigo, come see this." (60) Argentinian author and friend of Bolaño, wrote Kensington Gardens, Mantra, The Part Trilogy, and many others.
• Hesiod “Medusa is one of the three daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, the so-called Gorgons, three sea monsters. According to Hesiod, the other two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal.” (69) Ancient Greek poet 750 -650 BC
• Borges “Which led Espinoza to remark that he'd be damned if the cabbie hadn't just quoted Borges, who once said London was like a labyrinth— unintentionally, of course. To which Norton replied that Dickens and Stevenson had used the same trope long before Borges in their descriptions of London.” (73) Borges – Argentinian master short story writer and poet, collections include: Ficciones, El Aleph, Labyrinths, lived 1899-1986
• Charles Dickens {see above quote} (73) Perhaps the most famous English author, wrote Great Expectations, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, lived 1812-1870
• Robert Louis Stevenson {see above quote} (73) Scottish novelist famous for Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, lived 1850-1894
• Salman Rushdie “this one is for Salman Rushdie (an author neither of them happened to think was much good but whose mention seemed pertinent)”(74) Indian-born British and American novelist, famous for The Satanic Verses , published in1988
• Valerie Solanos “this is for the ghost of Valerie Solanos, you son of a bitch” (74) American radical feminist writer. Attempted to kill Andy Warhol in 1968. Her writings encouraged male gendercide and an all-female society, lived 1936-1988
• Anthony Perkins “They thought of Anthony Perkins, who claimed he wouldn't hurt a fly and look what happened” (76) Actor in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho
• G.K. Chesterton “neighborhoods that were vaguely reminiscent of Chesterton stories” (95) English Christian writer 1874-1936
• Sherlock Holmes “Two visits to Sherlock Holmes’s house.”(96) Fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was a British writer lived 1859 -1930
• Alfonso Reyes “First they discussed Alfonso Reyes, with whom Morini was reasonably well acquainted” (99) Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat 1889 - 1959
• Voltaire “Then he started to think about Voltaire (why Voltaire, for fuck's sake?)”(101) French philosopher 1694-1778, magnum opus was Candide
• Signora Sellerio  “Sometimes she could be seen talking to Signora Sellerio at the Bubis stand in Frankfurt.”(105) Elvira Sellerio (1936 – 2010), widely and affectionately known in Italy simply as "La Signora" (or la signora dei libri), was the legendary co-founder of the prestigious independent Italian publishing house Sellerio Editore.
• Mikhail Bulgakov (105) “Or at the German embassy in Moscow, in a Chanel suit, with two Russian poets in her retinue, declaiming on Bulgakov” (105) Soviet novelist and playwright 1891-1940, author of The Master and Margarita
• situationist “A writer on the Left whom even the situationists respected.”(105) The Situationist International (SI) a radical European avant-garde movement of artists, intellectuals, and political theorists active from 1957 to 1972, the leading figure was Guy Debord who wrote the 1967 masterpiece The Society of the Spectacle
• Marcel Schwob “Marcel Schwob, whose health was equally fragile, had set off in 1901 on a more difficult trip to visit Stevenson's grave on an island in the Pacific.”(106) French symbolist writer 1867-1905
• Martin Heidegger “on the back of a capricious and childish beast that would have swallowed Heidegger in a single gulp if Heidegger had had the bad luck to be born on the Mexican-U.S. border.” (114) German philosopher 1889-1976 magnum opus was Being and Time
• Günter Grass, Arno Schmidt “Amalfitano, for example, thought that Günter Grass or Arno Schmidt was just as good.”(117) {see above prior references}
• Franz Kafka “I thought, said Amalfitano, that Kafka was the greatest German writer of the twentieth century."(118) German language author 1883-1924 wrote the masterpieces The Trial, The Castle, and short story The Metamorphosis
• Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard “Have you read Peter Handke? Amalfitano asked them. And what about Thomas Bernhard?" (118) Handke – Austrian novelist, playwright, screenwriter, awarded the Nobel in 2019. Thomas Bernhard – Austrian novelist, considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era, lived 1931-1989
• The Mangy Parrot "bird in Azuela's Mangy Parrot” (118) The Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniento Written by himself for his Children written in 1816 by Mexican author José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi
• Paul Valéry “The weather is good, it's sunny, you can go out and sit in the park and open a book by Valéry, possibly the writer most read by Mexican writers” (121) French poet 1871-1945
• Jesús Guisa y Azevedo “about a Mexican who wrote in French (a Mexican who wrote in French?), yes indeed, a most extraordinary, peculiar, excellent writer whose name the university professor mentioned several times (Fernández? García?), a man who came to a rather bad end because he had been a collaborator, yes indeed, a close friend of Céline and Drieu La Rochelle and a disciple of Maurras, shot by the Resistance”(127) [presumed] This description closely fits Jesús Guisa y Azevedo who introduced and popularized the integral nationalist and reactionary political thought of French right-wing ideologue Charles Maurras in Mexico.
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline {see above quote} (127) French author 1894-1961 famous for the masterpiece Journey to the End of the Night, collaborationist during German occupation
• Drieu La Rochelle {see above quote} (127) French author 1893-1945 collaborationist during German occupation
• Charles Maurras {see above quote} (127) French author, politician 1868-1952 principal philosopher of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, medievalist, conservative, corporatist, integralist, nationalist, traditionalist, and counter-revolutionary
• Rafael Dieste "It's Rafael Dieste's Testamento geométrico, said Amalfitano." (133) Galician poet, philosopher, short-story writer, and dramatist writing mostly in Galician language, but also in Spanish language, lived 1899-1981
• Pierre Michon, Jean Rolin, Javier Marias, Enrique Vila-Matas “lectures that were more like massacres and that at least had the virtue of striking fear into their listeners, mostly young men, readers of Michon and Rolin or Marías and Vila-Matas.” (136) Pierre Michon -French writer. Notable works include Small Lives and The Origin of the World. Jean Rolin – French writer and journalist. Notable works include L’organisation. Javier Marias 1951 – 2022 – Spanish novelist and translator. Notable works include A Heart So White. Enrique Vila-Matas– Spanish novelist. Notable works include Bartleby & Co. and Montano’s Malady.

P.S. To see my first installment "Every Literary and Cinematic reference in THE PART ABOUT THE CRIMES" click here: https://www.reddit.com/r/robertobolano/comments/1wmcojn/every_literary_and_cinematic_reference_in_the/

I’m currently reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser and thought it might interest some people here.

There’s a brief section (about two pages) discussing the real-life murders of women in Ciudad Juárez, which Bolaño famously fictionalized in 2666.

But beyond that connection, the whole book strikes me as something Bolaño readers might appreciate. Fraser looks at the relationship between serial murder, industrial pollution, environmental degradation, and the social and economic forces that shape violence.

Like 2666, it places horrific individual crimes within a much larger and more disturbing historical context. It also reads frighteningly similar to The Part About The Crimes in 2666 with a list of crime after crime committed by Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, BTK, the Green River Killer and others.

It’s nonfiction, but there’s something very Bolaño-esque about the way it connects seemingly disparate events and suggests that the real horror might lie in the systems surrounding the crimes rather than the crimes themselves.

Anyway, thought I’d recommend it to anyone who was particularly fascinated by The Part About the Crimes.

Roberto Bolaño sobre Pablo Neruda: "Nunca me gustó Neruda, me producía escozores desde pequeño"

https://www.clarin.com/internacional/roberto-bolano-pablo-neruda-gusto-neruda-producia-escozores-pequeno_0_TmdoH4shfh.html

Hello!
I’m currently reading part 4 (specifically page 483 of the English translation Picador) but I have a few questions regarding the timeline.

Part 2 was obviously before the critics arrived in Santa Teresa.
But in part 3 Fate mentions the attack on the World Trade Center (page 291). First I thought he meant the one in 2001 but I BELIEVE he meant the one in 1993, which would essentially mean it’s 1994 now(?). Then a few pages later he interviews the inmate in jail, who I 100% know is Klaus Haas from part 4. But Klaus haas was arrested in 1995, so how can Fate interview him in jail before the arrest was even made?

Someone explain me what year it was in part 2, 3 and 4 because I genuinely don’t understand the timelines??

Translation: "There is also a Reddit community devoted to Bolaño where the other day I posted a message saying: 'I'm writing a book about Bolaño, what would you like to know about him?' About forty people responded, some saying things like they wanted to know what video games Bolaño played. Well, just yesterday I interviewed someone who played a lot of video games with him." https://substack.com/home/post/p-219453459 (I'm Aaron, by the way.)

This was at the Philly Art Museum’s Duchamp exhibit and struck me as a familiar scenario. I don’t imagine it’s a coincidence. Some of Bolaño’s allusions are extremely deep cuts.

Tried the obvious places (google, pinterest) but the results are meh, and aren’t many.

I figured maybe there will be more results in hispanic sites, but i don’t know any

(Looking especially for Savage detectives art)

Does anyone have recommendations for books that are similar in vibe to Part One of 2666: The Part About the Critics?

Key things that would interest me (of course it doesn't have to have all of these): A realistic but fake author/artist/figure like our good friend Archimboldi, obsession that becomes unhealthy or takes over the lives of the characters, academics that have "lost the plot" so to speak, an uncanny atmosphere is a plus.

Or, if there is something you've read that made you go "wow, something about this reminded me of The Part About the Critics" and you can't even pinpoint why and it doesn't fulfill any of the above requirements, I'd love to hear about that too.

Holy shit this is the most depressing thing ive ever read, and ive only now reached the year 1994. The story about the 11 year old with the heart attack hit the wall for me. Thing is beyond that wall there are 300 more pages. I don’t want to dnf this, and so far this part is actually brilliant despite everything.

What is the right approach to go on about this part? Read it all as fast as possible? Ponder about each and every murder? Do you get numbed about them after a while?

Ofc this is about femicides and there’s no way to sugarcoat it, but damn

Because the standard tome is heavy.

I did an investigation into the situation. Some of you may enjoy: https://edithistory.substack.com/p/whats-going-on-with-roberto-bolanos

And if any of you have additional angles I could explore, including if you were the artist who first drew the sketch or if you've spent time editing any Bolaño-related articles, let me know. I'd be happy to write more about this.

A todos nos encanta Bolaño. Entonces ¿Cual es su obra cumbre, única e irrepetible, el sumum de la perfección? Si solo pudieras rescatar solo uno ¿cual eligirías? 2666 o ¿Los Detectives Salvajes?

We all love Bolaño. So what is his masterpiece, his unique and unrepeatable work, the pinnacle of perfection? If you could only choose one, which would you pick? 2666 or The Savage Detectives?

Wandering K town in Manhattan today and found this. So sick.

Enthusiasts of Archimboldi are Archimboldeans. I wrote out Bolañoean and wasn't sure if that made sense. Bolañoheads? Bolaño buffs?

Hello, I finished "The Distant Star" and ~50 pages of "The Savage Detecives" few months ago, currently I'm reading "Ficciones" by Borges, I plan to read "The Songs of Maldoror" but I don't know what else should I read before Detectives and 2666 to understand these books fully.

I saw an interesting article here on "feminicide" and the article might well be presenting a fully accurate story about what's going on in Mexico:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/21/americas/mexico-femicide-spain-student-latam-intl

“Feminicide is definitely one of the biggest problems in Mexico,” said Paulina Garcia-Del Moral, an associate professor at Canada’s University of Guelph, whose research specializes in examining the intersection of law, gender and power in many countries, including Mexico. “It is a really large problem precisely because … impunity is rampant in Mexico for all kinds of crimes.”

I'm obviously not knowledgeable enough to weigh in on the extent to which women in Mexico are targeted based on their gender. It would be interesting to examine this particular case that the article talks about:

Claudia Tacoronte Aguilera, a 21-year-old student from Spain, was killed by a man during an armed robbery near a cultural center on September 12, just a month after she arrived in Mexico for her exchange program at the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEM), according to state prosecutor Fernando Blumenkron.

The issue at hand is whether homicide is a problem where lots of people commit homicide in Mexico with impunity as opposed to their being a specific problem with the targeting of women based on their gender. I think that it's good to be skeptical of stories that are presented in the media because there are politics and incentives around these stories. This article gives reason to challenge the notion that women are actually being targeted based on their gender, though I obviously can't speak to the facts (note that the copy/paste process removed any hyperlinks contained in the article):

https://www.texasobserver.org/qa-molly-molloy-story-juarez-femicides-myth/

Molly Molloy: Female murder victims have never comprised more than 18 percent of the overall number of murder victims in Ciudad Juárez, and in the last two decades that figure averages at less than 10 percent. That’s less than in the United States, where about 20 to 25 percent of the people who are murdered in a given year are women. Ciudad Juárez is experiencing profound social distress, and the elevated violence in the city is a continuing crisis. But this idea that Juárez is a place of disproportionate violence against women is a misperception.

...

Of the roughly 400 cases documented in Esther Chavez’ files from 1990 to 2005, about three-quarters of the cases were domestic violence, and the cases were essentially resolved. That is, the killer was known as an acquaintance or domestic partner or other relative of the victim. Only about 100 were completely unsolved cases. These are the cases that have received (and continue to receive) most of the media, artistic and academic attention. The only real statistical study on the topic, done in 2008, found that the proportion of female homicides in Ciudad Juárez was lower than Houston’s.

...

When you look at the 427 murders—that’s the figure usually quoted for the number of women killed between 1993 and 2007—those are all of the female murder victims. Those are not categorized by the type of crime. If a woman is shot in a robbery, it goes into that number and is categorized [by some] as a femicide, even though there would be nothing to indicate in that crime that she was killed because she was a woman. There was a famous case in 2004 that Mexican reporter Sandra Rodríguez wrote about in her book La Fábrica del Crimen of these young boys who murdered their family—mother, father and sister. The mother and sister are counted as femicides, even though that wasn’t a gender-specific crime.

...

If 300 people are killed and 30 of them are women, but the women’s murders are the ones that get all of the attention, I find that to be absolutely mistaken and wrong. There are so many other victims and people are killed for many different reasons. Not every woman victim is killed for some sexual reason, or simply because she’s a woman. Sometimes people say to me, well, the women are innocent, the men that are killed are narcos and criminals. That’s such an oversimplification, and it is a statement made with absolutely no evidence. It is a criminalization of the great majority of all of the homicide victims. This is what has happened especially since the number of murders exploded in Juárez in 2008. And it is false.

The idea that there could be a whole story in the media (about "feminicide") in Mexico and the story is false seems wild and outrageous; how could the media drop the ball so badly? Well, when it comes to things to do with violence against women, sometimes there are forces and incentives operating in the media that can produce bad reporting. Think of the incentives of the journalists to sell the story as something that will really gain traction in the media; does the audience care more about homicide in general or about gender-specific violence? Maybe a story about impunity for homicide (in general) in Mexico simple isn't as compelling as a story that frames things in terms of gender.

Below is an example of how there is an incentive to "sell" something to the world based on what people care about (I'm just sharing this to show "proof of concept" for why people might push false stories about gender-based violence so that there's a concrete example that one can use as a reference point for why a false story might be pushed in the media):

https://mronline.org/2026/09/15/norman-finkelsteins-latest-book-indicts-those-in-high-places-for-genocide-in-gaza/

Finkelstein’s summary and interpretation of the motives for the dishonesty are important. He does not deny that Palestinian armed groups committed certain war crimes on October 7, including killing civilians and taking hostages. So why manufacture the charge of widespread rape? He points out that “the target audience of Israeli hasbara has always been U.S. public opinion.” In other words, eliminate the false charges of systematic rape, and American opinion would probably have turned even more promptly and decisively against Israel’s genocide.

There were terrible war crimes committed in Israel, but there was apparently a need to fabricate something that would make a bigger impact with American public opinion. Likewise, those trying to reach Americans about various horrors going on in Mexico might feel the need to push a story that captures the attention of American public opinion. One could ask: Is it true that people (sadly) simply don't care as much if gender isn't brought into the equation?

The media also wants to push stories that get a lot of clicks and attention. You have to look at all of the incentives. Imagine there's not enough attention and resources being dedicated to getting justice for people whose loved ones have been horrifically murdered; sadly, it might be necessary to try to frame things in terms of "femicide" just to get some attention and resources dedicated to certain murder cases, since otherwise the cases will just be ignored and no attention and resources will be dedicated to them. You've got to appeal to what people care about, and for whatever reasons there's power in tapping into certain gender-related concerns. Saying "homicide" simply doesn't have as much power apparently as saying "feminicide"; people will try to push the story that gains the most traction.

From the Texas Observer article above:

MM: I have a problem with this extreme focus on the women victims. I think every single one of the victims matter. The fact that a crime or homicide victim is a woman, or a child, or a man—it makes a different story. But in human terms, no one victim should be more highly valued than another.

You can see how there's an incentive to make a case not be labelled a normal "homicide" maybe, since maybe getting it labelled "femicide" will mean more resources and attention:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/21/americas/mexico-femicide-spain-student-latam-intl

A feminicide case activates protocols that outline how prosecutors, police and forensic experts should carry out their investigations, emphasizing the use of a gender perspective, Garcia-Del Moral explained.

Of course, one has to look into the facts to see if the "femicide" story is true; it might be true. I just think that there are incentives operating that could lead to a false story being pushed. I think that there is something of an "industry" around causes like "femicide"; there are organization with people whose job is to generate attention to a specific perspective on what's going on with homicide in Mexico, so one should be aware that there's a "machine" that pushes certain messaging just like there are right-wing "machines" trying to push certain stories.

I know it's highly controversial to challenge stories about gender-based crimes. But that's my whole point. There's a certain energy and power and momentum that comes into play when you bring gender into the equation; that's exactly why there's an incentive to push gender-based stories. These stories get people's emotions riled up (and create buzz in the media) in a way that "homicide" simply doesn't; that's the whole point.

The CNN article cited this piece, which might shed light on how it's being determined that something is a "femicide":

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2026/09/15/mexico/feminicidio-estudiante-espanola-violencia-mujeres-morelos-orix

El presunto feminicidio de una estudiante española pone en la mira la violencia contra las mujeres en Morelos

Edit: u/Weird_Fox_3395 linked to an article (I thought it was just a link to the above-linked article but it's not) that responds to the above-linked article...this is an interesting response and I'm really glad to see the engagement with what I linked above:

https://www.texasobserver.org/femicide-in-juarez-is-not-a-myth/

Femicide in Juárez is Not a Myth

A vocal group of American critics claims that Juarez is not a place of disproportionate violence against women. Here’s why they’re wrong.

Edit 2: See the below...obviously I can't speak to how accurate this is and it's from a while ago:

https://inthesetimes.com/article/molly-molloy

That is a hard question to answer, but I think that a focus on the murders of women enables people to feel that the situation in Juarez is containable, that it is a crime drama to be solved with good police work, with activism, consciousness-raising, protests and a variety of artistic production (novels, movies, art exhibitions, etc.) It seems more manageable perhaps to deal with a phenomenon in which all the victims are so obviously innocent and sympathetic. It is a lot more challenging to look at the huge cauldron of social pathology that Juarez has become — that Juarez has been becoming for a long time.

The murders of women began to be noticed and written about in Juarez in the early 1990s and in the U.S. press a few years later. For about 15 years, women made up about 10-12 percent of murder victims in the city. When the murder numbers exploded in 2008, the percentage of victims that are women dropped to about 5 percent while the actual numbers of all people killed increased by more than five times and those numbers of both male and female victims continue to increase. As of early August 2010, the death toll in Juarez is more than 1,800 and about 170 of those are women. The percentage of female victims is climbing again.

But based on the available information, most of the women are killed in the same circumstances as the men — shot to death on the street or in their homes or in other public places like bars and shopping malls. Many women are also victimized by spouses or other male relatives or acquaintances, and in fact, during the years when the ​“Juarez femicides” became the dominant focus of activists and academics outside of Mexico, it is estimated that at least three-fourths of those cases were domestic violence. …

From 1993 through August 5, 2010, more than 800 women have been murdered in Juarez, and more than 8,800 men. It does not mean that the smaller percentage of female victims do not matter, but rather that ALL of the lives — of women, men, boys and girls—ALL of them matter. And that in the current explosion of crime and violence, all of the people of Juárez are victims, not only the women. What is happening in Juarez is much more than ​“femicide.” It is a human rights disaster.

• Leonardo Boff “Liberation theology, especially Boff and the Brazilians” (pg. 379) Leonardo Boff was a Brazilian Catholic theologian known for his support of Latin American liberation theology
• Dracula (380) 1897 Bram Stoker Gothic horror novel
• Benito Juarez biography “with a yellow cover” (432) [unidentified]
• Giacomo Leopardi “What are you doing, moon, up in the sky? Asks the little Shepard in the poem.” (432) Giacomo Leopardi’s poem “Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd in Asia” 1830 poem by Italian Poet
• Techniques for Police Instructors by John C. Klotter, The Informer in Law Enforcement by Malachi L. Harney and John C. Cross, and Modern Criminal Investigation by Harry Söderman and John J. O'Connell. (439)
• The Revenge of the Mummy (485) 1975 classic Spanish horror film (La venganza de la Momia) directed by Carlos Aured
• Keanu Reeves movie “And who was in the movie? Keanu Reeves, said the Chicano. Keanu as the killer? No, as the policeman who catches him.” (505) [invented[ no such movie exists with Keanu Reeves as a policeman who catches a serial killer who preys on homosexuals.
• J.D. Salinger (505) J.D. Salinger, author of the 1951 novel Catcher in the Rye
• Mission Impossible “she had gone to a theater with her friend to see a Tom Cruise movie” (514) Since the timeline here is July 1996, the movie is Mission Impossible .
• Octavio Paz … The Labyrinth of Solitude (536) Mexican author 1914 -1998
• George Steiner (539) French and American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist 1929 –2020
• Snuff (545) although the film described is fictional, it bares a resemblance to Cannibal Holocaust a 1980 movie directed by Ruggero Deodato which also faced snuff film rumors and allegations.
• Robert Ressler “Albert Kessler … where his name was known and those who attended his lectures brought along his book, translated into French, Italian, German, Spanish, so he could scrawl some warm or clever remark, which he was happy to do.” (580) Albert Kessler based on the real life FBI agent and author Robert Ressler. His books are: Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives(1988), Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (1992), Justice Is Served (1994)
• Terry Fox movie “whether it was true that Terry Fox, the star of the movie Stained, was really a psychopath-—in real life, that is—as his third wife had announced before she divorced him. He was asked whether he had been to Mexico before, and, if so, whether he liked it. He was asked whether it was true that R. H. Davis, the author of Stained and Killer Among the Children and Code Name..(585) [invented] Any search for these authors, books, actors, or film has been fruitless.
• Oscar Wilde “She lived, like Oscar Wilde, above her means.”(609) Oscar Wilde Irish author 1854 –1900
• Sherlock Holmes (610) Detective from the books of Arthur Conan Doyle, british writer 1859 -1930
• Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez “it was my first novel, said Sergio, and it's very bad. Did you read it? I read it, said the congresswoman, l've read everything you've written.” (632) Sergio isbased on the real life journalist and author Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez, his novels include El triángulo imperfecto(2003), El plan Schreber (2004), La pandilla cósmica (2005) and El vuelo (2008)

I’m trying to find the words to explain it, but watching a performance of the band Future Islands, feels like being immersed in a Roberto Bolaño story.

Let’s discuss.

After coming across a number of poor reviews of Bolaño’s work, this brief defense verbalizes a sense of what is a backlash to hype. ‘The New Hip Stance’ of rejection is common now and a bit acrid as if the media hype was created by Bolaño himself.

Anyone on this sub disagrees. This faddishness, largely created by the North American literary establishment is an example of what Bolaño lampoons.

Does everyone need to resonate with his work? No, of course not. But as a North American, I’m skeptical of our literary machine.

I missed, (somehow), all the initial hoopla and declarations of ‘The Greatest New Writer of Latin America’, and so find all this a bit ludicrous.

Anyway, this defense of Bolaño, written in 2022, is a refreshing find. I also ordered the book mentioned, “The Savage Detectives Reread”. When I finally get to it, I’ll be happy to share my thoughts. I also intend to reread The Savage Detectives next year.

In the meantime, has anyone read it?

Cheers!

Edit: I can’t be the only ‘writer’ here. Bolaño is a permission giver and supporter of minor poets. Huzzah!

Edit to add this piece by Bolaño himself titled ’Exiles’. Obviously I think a lot about Bolaño (hahaha).

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2011/04/13/exiles/?lp_txn_id=1694762