The Secret of Evil

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This volume gathers a handful of stories and narrative sketches gleaned from the more than fifty files found on Roberto Bolaño’s computer after his death. Many of those files contain poems, stories, novels, articles, talks and interviews that Bolaño had published during his lifetime or had prepared for publication. Other files contain poems and narrative sketches or fragments in various states of completion, sometimes on their own, but more often grouped and inventoried in what appear to be drafts of books, to which Bolaño himself, from a very early stage, would usually give a provisional title, and sometimes even a dedication. Such is the case with the file entitled “BAIRES,” which has served as the basis for the composition of this volume. There are multiple indications that Bolaño was working on this file in the months immediately preceding his death, although there is no record of the dates on which the various files were created or modified. The conviction that this was one of the last documents on which Bolaño worked motivated the editors’ decision to preserve the dedication that figured at the beginning of the file, after the title New Stories. The possibility of keeping that title was also considered, but in the end we chose to borrow the title of one of the stories in the file, which opens with a declaration that is apposite to many of the pieces collected here: “This story is very simple, although it could have been very complicated. Also, it’s incomplete, because stories like this don’t have an ending.”

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