I Confess (Sort of)

A confession is, by definition, a declaration of guilt. To confess is to disclose one's sins and open oneself to judgment; a difficult undertaking, sure, but one that (in theory, at least) is ultimately rewarded with forgiveness, a clear conscience, a mind at ease. If so, Father Sebastián Urrutia, the narrator of Roberto Bolaño's arresting historical novel By Night in Chile, makes a most unusual confessor. "There are a couple of points that have to be cleared up," he begins his deathbed ramble. It soon becomes clear that the confession into which the half-delirious Chilean priest has launched--snaking through the novel's 130 pages in a single labyrinthine paragraph--is less an admission of guilt than a guilt-ridden self-defense, alternately defiant and desperate in tone. Father Urrutia's monologue encircles his sin without ever naming it: complicity in the murderous dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Bolaño, an acclaimed and prolific Chilean author who published nine novels, two short-story collections and five books of poetry before succumbing to liver failure last year at age 50, experienced Pinochet's repression firsthand. In 1973 Bolaño returned to his native Chile from Mexico, where his family had moved several years earlier, to "help build socialism" under President Salvador Allende. Within a month of his repatriation, a military junta toppled Allende, installed Pinochet as leader and imprisoned thousands of pro-democracy Allendistas, including 20-year-old Bolaño.

Years later, the notoriously wry Bolaño would downplay his experience as a political prisoner, exhibiting what Chris Andrews (who translated By Night in Chile into English) has described as his gift for "corrosive, self-mocking humor." In a 1999 interview with the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, Bolaño deflected a question about his imprisonment, saying, "Those were monstrously happy days." To a follow-up question about the role of Chilean writers in Pinochet's coup--were they resisters or collaborators?--Bolaño's answer was similarly sardonic, at once evasive and blunt: "I prefer not to give my opinion on that because I'm afraid it would be extremely cruel...and I don't feel like being cruel this afternoon. Let's just say that the role Chilean writers played at that moment left much to be desired."

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