Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) was the author of The Savage Detectives and 2666, among many other notable works. Born in Santiago, Chile, he later lived in Mexico City, Paris, and Barcelona. His accolades include the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He died at the age of fifty and is widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. Natasha Wimmer is a translator of contemporary fiction and literary nonfiction. She is a regular visiting lecturer at Princeton University and Columbia University and she has written reviews and criticism for The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, among other publications.