An exhibition at the Centro Cultural de Los Ángeles, Chile, revives writer Roberto Bolaño's teenage years in that southern city. Opened on March 16, the show features the author's drawings and period objects. It will remain open until April 23.
The Centro Cultural de Los Ángeles hosts the exhibition “Bolaño, regreso al país natal”, set in the former Liceo de Hombres building where Roberto Bolaño studied in the mid-1960s. The writer's family lived in the city until 1968, when they moved to Mexico City with him at age fifteen.
Curated by 34-year-old journalist and literature master's degree holder Natalia Matus, the show explores that under-researched phase of the author's life. “Roberto Bolaño's preadolescent life is not very investigated, not very explored,” states Matus. “And I think everything he absorbed here is relevant. I believe it is reflected in his literature.”
The display features a career timeline, short film fragments, a sound installation with texts from Sepulcros de vaqueros and drawings signed by Bolaño from 1973, made during his brief return to Chile. That year, after the military coup, he was detained near Concepción but released due to recognition by former schoolmates.
On view are family photos, a copy of Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada similar to his mother Victoria Ávalos's, and materials on Neruda's 1971 Nobel Prize. The center provides a reading area with Anagrama editions and critical bibliography.
Outside, the family home on calle Juan Antonio Coloma is for sale and has drawn visitors like U.S. poet Reed Sheppard and Chilean poet Jordi Lloret. The author's sister, María Salomé Bolaño, recently visited it too. Meanwhile, in Blanes, Spain, “Roberto Bolaño: El visitante del futuro” is on display.
