Roberto Bolaño Recenters His Mythic World
Credit.David Plunkert
By Garth Risk Hallberg
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Emily Dickinson asked her sister, Vinnie, to burn her papers after she died. For Kafka, it was his friend Max Brod. Philip Larkin assigned the job to a professional, the distinguished editor and poet Anthony Thwaite. But no formal code of ethics covers the work of literary executors, whose general inclination â when in doubt, publish â often leaves us the richer. True, it may not enlarge our sense of Larkinâs poems to read him banging on about his ânon-acting bowelsâ (see: âLetters Home: 1937-1977â), but do we really want to live in a world where Dickinsonâs fascicles or Kafkaâs âCastleâ get consigned to the flames?