First of four 2010 Bolaño titles out in January

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In January, New Directions will release Chilean author Roberto Bolaño's Monsieur Pain in English translation. The first of four Bolaño titles to be published in English in 2010, the title will be available January 12 in the US and February 1 internationally.

Roberto Bolaño, who died at age 50 in 2003, has become a literary sensation in the English-speaking world since the posthumous publication of his 2666, a 900-page novel set in a fictional Mexican-US border town. Other Bolaño works previously translated into English include The Savage Detectives (whose English translation helped bring the author to worldwide attention), By Night in Chile, Amulet, and, most recently, The Skating Rink.

Monsieur Pain was originally published in Spanish in 1999. Set in 1938 Paris, the story centers on Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo, afflicted with an undiagnosed illness and unable to stop hiccupping, and the mesmerist Pierre Pain, a timid bachelor.

Among other Bolaño titles to be released by New Directions this year are Antwerp (April 2010), The Return (June 2010), and The Insufferable Gaucho (August 2010). Titles to be released in 2011 include Between Parentheses (June 2011) and The Secret of Evil (November 2011).

In addition to the New Directions editions, Picador Press in the UK is also due to published 11 Bolaño titles, ten of which were acquired from New Directions. The 11th, The Third Reich, is the last novel Bolaño wrote and was found after his death. That title is set to be published in 2011.