*2666* (2004) by Roberto Bolaño is a sprawling, posthumously published masterpiece that intertwines five loosely connected narratives, all orbiting around the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Santa Teresa (a fictional stand-in for Ciudad Juárez). A bleak yet brilliant meditation on violence, art, and the abyss of modernity, the novel’s fragmented structure echoes its themes of chaos and unresolved truth.
The Five Parts:
- “The Part About the Critics”: Four European academics obsess over the reclusive German writer Benno von Archimboldi, leading them to Santa Teresa.
- “The Part About Amalfitano”: A Chilean professor’s descent into madness in Mexico, haunted by his wife’s abandonment and a mysterious geometry book.
- “The Part About Fate”: Oscar Fate, a Black American journalist, covers a boxing match in Santa Teresa and stumbles into its horrors.
- “The Part About the Crimes”: A forensic, numbing catalog of the Santa Teresa femicides, mirroring real-life Juárez.
- “The Part About Archimboldi”: The enigmatic life of the missing writer, whose fate ties back to Santa Teresa’s darkness.
Bolaño’s prose—alternately lyrical, clinical, and hallucinatory—confronts the reader with the limits of literature to encapsulate evil. *2666* is a demanding, unforgettable labyrinth, often compared to Infinite Jest or The Savage Detectives (Bolaño’s other major work).
