The Border in the Literary Vision of Roberto Bolaño

Abstract

I analyze the frontier and how the crossing of it affects the characters in 2666 and The Salvages Detectives of Roberto Bolaño. The rise of feminicides in the cities of the border between Mexico and USA happened at the same time of the implementation of the NAFTA that attracted a lot of assembly plants. The coexistence of the violence represented by the military and political forces of the Mexican state and the drug dealers are examples of a fundamental failure of Mexico as a democratic state. Another phenomenon that affects the borders is the big migration of people to the development countries. The Salvages Detectives and 2666 are Bolaño’s novels that work as tools that amplify –from a literary, sociological and political perspective- the complex reality of the border, where nomads that have lost their moral center are centrifuged by a dehumanizing modernity.