Born in Santiago, Chile, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) moved to Mexico City with his family in 1968. He went back to Chile in 1973, just a month before Pinochet seized power, and was arrested. After his release he returned to Mexico before moving to Paris and then Barcelona. He wrote ten novels and two collections of short stories as well as poetry before he died at the age of fifty, on July 15, 2003.