Paris, 1938. The Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo lies in hospital, hiccupping himself to death.

When the doctors struggle to offer a diagnosis, his wife calls on an acquaintance of her friend Madame Reynaud, the mesmerist and reclusive bachelor Pierre Pain. Pain, in love and eager to impress, agrees to help. But on a night that 'smells of something strange', things soon go awry...

A wonderfully oneiric novella that blends the finest of Edgar Allan Poe with Jorge Luis Borges and Bolano's truly astonishing alchemical gifts, Monsieur Pain is a gripping noir conspiracy as rich as it is strange.

TRANSLATED BY CHRIS ANDREWS

A surrealist nightmare, with overtones of Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Chandler The Times

This marvellous little yarn is dark, mysterious and rich in surprises... If you have yet to enter the daringly kaleidoscopic labyrinth that is Roberto Bolano's imagination, this is a lively place to begin what will be quite an experience Irish Times