From Antwerp, which will be published for the first time in English next year by New Directions. Bolaño’s “Luz Mendiluce Thompson” appeared in the March 2008 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.

cleaning utensils

All praise to the highways and to these moments. Umbrellas abandoned by bums in shopping plazas with white supermarkets rising at the far ends. It’s summer and the policemen are drinking at the back of a bar. Next to the jukebox a girl listens to the latest hits. Around the same time, someone is walking, far from here, away…