Roberto Bolaño: “After winning the Nobel Prize, I won't be applying for any more awards... not even the Planeta Prize.”

In the heart of the Raval neighborhood, the meeting place with Roberto Bolaño is the space dedicated to the writer at 45 Calle Tallers. What was once his humble 25-square-meter attic, with a shared bathroom, is now a modern gallery honoring the writer that attracts tourists and locals alike: there's a bar with an extensive library, as well as table football, slot machines, a permanent exhibition, an auditorium, and jazz music playing in the background through the speakers. On the terrace—where he is allowed to smoke—Bolaño talks about the call he received on the first Thursday of last October from Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, announcing that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, for which he had been a candidate for decades.

"The film's greatest casting success was Javier Bardem's role as Octavio Paz."

How does it feel to win the Nobel Prize?

That's a question for a footballer.

Oh, excuse me...

No, if I put it to you as a positive thing, it's a question that's asked of the greats of the field. In the 1962 World Cup, the Brazilian national team stayed near my house, so I met Pelé and even saved a penalty from Vavá. The Nobel Prize... the great milestones of Spanish literature bear no relation to this award, either because it didn't exist yet (in the case of Cervantes and Quevedo) or because it wasn't awarded (in the case of Borges). Between these three names, and before and after, there's a great void that, of course, I don't claim to have filled. Arrogant writers believe they'll endure, but that's not my case: we can name dozens of Nobel Prize winners that no one reads anymore. And conversely: there are also lesser authors who endure. Enduring doesn't mean anything either. But, to answer your question, for someone like me, who has been applying for prizes all his life, from neighborhood associations to publishing houses, to city councils and provincial institutions, the Nobel Prize represents the culmination of that competitive path. I promise I won't apply for any more, not even the Planeta Prize, although they now offer a little more money than the Nobel Prize.

Chile is the Latin American country with the most Nobel Prizes: before you, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda won.

I'm the only dyslexic. And, at least, a better person than Neruda. I consider myself essentially a poet, like them. I started writing poetry about life and death; I admired the excessive lives of poets. But I think the best poetry of the 20th century is written in prose: Proust, Joyce, Faulkner...

His name is now on the same list as Mexican Octavio Paz, what an irony.

We infrarealists, in fact, in the Mexico of our youth, dedicated ourselves to boycotting him. We hated him, we lashed out at his actions, and we thought he was the most petty and accommodating of beings... but you know what? Today, with age, I see that Paz was a great poet and essayist, and a brave man at that. He opened up paths that had been stalled, like that of erotic poetry.

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In your speech in Stockholm, you evoked the times when you stole books...

In the end, I quit because I got caught a couple of times, and it made me really nervous. For me, stealing books isn't a crime; those who steal always read them, unlike those who buy them. I don't share the industry's complaints about piracy; it's the proof of success. A pirated writer is like a Louis Vuitton bag from the Turkish bazaars. It's impossible to be greater. But I didn't just talk about my past as a thief; I also worked as a waiter, a bus ticket seller, and a campsite security guard—necessary and honorable jobs. Today, everyone gets a master's degree in literary studies, but I dropped out of high school at 16 to dedicate myself to reading and writing every day.

He says Paz paved the way, who else?

Unfortunately, there's still a novel that only sustains itself through its plot and its linear way of telling it, but for me, that form is already dead. It needs playfulness, a crossover of voices. The novel can't keep repeating itself in a kind of permanent boom, no matter how much you like it. Juan Villoro, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Carmen Boullosa, César Aira, Enrique Vila-Matas, Fernando Vallejo, Rodrigo Fresán, and Javier Marías are names who have blazed a trail. Then there are writers, lacking a sense of rhythm, mediocre to varying degrees, ranging from Arturo Pérez-Reverte to Isabel Allende, to be fair.

The award comes at the height of a wave, just after the release of the Hollywood film The Savage Detectives, starring Timothée Chalamet as Arturo Belano, in a role that could earn him an Oscar nomination. What did you think?

He came to see me, we were chatting here about the character. I listened to him because, I thought, if Bob Dylan did it, I'm no less. The best part of the film, for me, is the soundtrack, with Dylan and Patti Smith in particular. It feels strange to see Anthony Ramos as Ulises Lima, but I think maybe my friend Mario Santiago Papasquiaro (who inspired the character) would have liked it, if he'd been able to see it. There's a scene that's just like that: Mario gets in the shower and continues reading there, underwater, getting the books wet! The best casting choice is Javier Bardem as Octavio Paz, no one better to play the villain. The important thing, I told Timothée, is to reflect how young people stake everything on poetry, that passion or madness to approach ecstasy through words. These kids are the grandchildren of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Lautréamont. They lived, we lived, rudderless and in delirium, paraphrasing Mario Santiago, something one would not wish for one's children.

But things haven't gone badly for you...

If I hadn't written I would be healthier and more alive, I have no doubt.

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There's an audiovisual project about the five volumes of 2666, right?

It seems there's interest in doing a series based on this collection of books. The only condition I set is that its structure be respected, and so there will be five seasons, just as the novel has always been published in five parts by my publisher, Anagrama. I love Jorge Herralde very much, although perhaps I shouldn't...

In one of your works, Ciudad céntrico, you reflect on the bustling, alternative Barcelona of the 1970s, filled with Latin Americans, and in Abismo, you delve into the current drug trafficking networks. What project are you working on now?

I'm finishing a new collection of poems that I plan to deliver to Sandra Ollo at the end of the year.

How do you handle your role as editor?

Together with my friends Ana María Chagra and Bruno Montané, we founded Ediciones Sin Fin, a cooperative where we publish the works we like that no one else publishes: Darío Galicia, Mario Santiago, Tulio Mora, Felisberto Hernández, Osvaldo Lamborghini... I've proudly seen these books sold at traffic lights in various Latin American cities. I brought some copies to the Swedes...

Have the changes in your private life influenced your literary work?

That's a much more interesting question for Vargas Llosa. Did he ask it of him?