Amulet

Amulet is a monologue, like Bolano's acclaimeddebut in English, By Night in Chile. The speaker is AuxilioLacouture, a Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico in the 1960s, becomingthe "Mother of Mexican Poetry," hanging out with the youngpoets in the cafes and bars of the University. She's tall, thin, and blonde, and her favorite young poet in the 1970s is none other thanArturo Belano (Bolano's fictional stand-in throughout his books). As well as her young poets, Auxilio recalls three remarkable women: the melancholic young philosopher Elena, the exiled Catalan painterRemedios Varo, and Lilian Serpas, a poet who once slept with Che Guevara.And in the course of her imaginary visit to the house of Remedios Varo, Auxilio sees an uncanny landscape, a kind of chasm. This chasm reappearsin a vision at the end of the book: an army of children is marchingtoward it, singing as they go. The children are the idealistic youngLatin Americans who came to maturity in the '70s, and the last wordsof the novel are: "Andthat song is our amulet."