Two new novels by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño have reportedly been found in Spain among papers he left behind after his death. The previously unseen manuscripts were entitled Diorama and The Troubles of the Real Police Officer, reported La Vanguardia.

The newspaper said the documents also included what is believed to be a sixth section of Bolaño’s epic five-part novel 2666.

I have to admit that reading this I half-cringed . . . I really hope that these aren’t abandoned projects that Bolano didn’t necessarily want to publish.

Anyway, here’s the story: First off on Sunday Adriana Lopez of reported that the rumor that Wylie was going to move to Spain and takeover Balcells (who represents a number of big name Spanish-language authors) is untrue.

According to the infamous literary agent Anrew Wylie, aka the Jackal, “It’s easier and more serious to do business in the Congo than it is in Spain.” Interviewed at the Frankfurt book fair last week for El Pais’ culture section, it was time he set the record straight for the sake of Spain’s publishing circuit’s sanity. [. . .] But he is going to take away the world’s current hottest deceased writer from the agency: Roberto Bolaño. The author’s wife Carolina contacted Wylie because Bolaño’s contract with the Balcells agency expires on November 4th of this year.

Wait, what? Congo > Spain?? . . . If I were an international author I’d jump to be represented by someone so culturally sensitive and understanding of the Spanish book market. The only thing I’ve found difficult in dealing with Spanish publishers is the fricking postal service, but it’s not like USPS is that much better. (If only Tristero . . .)

Anyway, the bigger news—for all the Bolano fans—is that a new manuscript has been found. According to

The Third Reich is said to have been written in the early 1990s before Bolaño began to work on a computer. The Wylie agency was touting the book at Frankfurt as “a type-written, completed novel that is meticulously corrected by hand”, according to Spain’s El Periodico.

Described as “a man’s descent into a nightmare”, the book features a German wargames champion who travels to the Costa Brava to take on an American opponent. He is pursued by a private detective while a friend disappears after encountering two sinister characters.

And supposedly, publishers from around the world are fighting over the rights to this title . . . I’m going to dream that Wylie has some integrity and will offer this to New Directions, who has/is publishing more Bolano than anyone else . . . Although I’m going to suspect that FSG or Random will get this in a battle of big vs. bigger offers. I cringe at the idea of this book being auction off in a crass, capitalistic fashion because of the groundwork ND and FSG did for his books here in the U.S.

It also strikes me that this is another time (see Sebald) that Wylie is late to the party, but seizes the literary world and makes a shitload of money off of a name built by others. (Again, apologies, cynicism, traveling for 18 hours, etc., etc.)

The title chosen by Bolaño (1953–2003) for this slim, fake encyclopedia is not wholly tongue-in-cheek: given the very real presence of former (and not-so-former) Nazis in Latin America following WWII, this book, despite being fiction, still had j’accuse-like power when first published in 1996. The poets described herein, though invented, seem—even at their most absurd—plausible, which is the secret to this sly book’s devastating effect. [. . .] The wild inventiveness of Bolaño’s evocations places them squarely in the realm of Borges—another writer who draws enormous power from the movement between the fictive and the real.