Roberto Bolaño’s ‘Mauricio (“The Eye”) Silva’, or the Rooted Ethics of a Cosmopolitan

Abstract

The article offers a detailed close reading of “The Eye Silva”, one of Roberto Bolaño’s most moving short stories, through notions of wandering and rootedness. It examines the relevance and scope of its idea of extraterritoriality, its characters’ particular form of cosmopolitanism, as well as metaphors of country and ways of belonging and action proposed in the narrative.