"Anything, so long as I fulfill my dream." Loving Azel, Miguel con verts to Islam. His shadow marriage to Kenza brings both siblings to Spain. But Spain cannot fulfill their dreams. Homesick, Azel writes let ters to his country, wanders the streets of those who "don't see us," and disdains Moroccans like him who "don't like themselves, yet show their vulnerability by flying into rages at the slightest criticism of their country." Feigning excite ment with Miguel, Azel becomes impotent with women. Desperate and angry, he steals fromMiguel, who finally terminates their rela tionship. Still seeking heroism, Azel at last accepts a fundamen talist's overtures and turns police informant, with dire consequences. Kenza, meanwhile, briefly enjoys her freedom, working as a dancer and entering an intense relation ship with a mysterious Turk. But once her romance fails, she longs to return home. This realist textboasts a post modern coda. Miguel, Kenza, and other emigres board the ship, Toutia, with Sancho Panza, Don Quixote, and Flaubert, here a Cam eroonian worker for a European ngo who "studied a few pages of Madame Bovary" and notes that Africans "all feel theneed to leave our native land, because our coun tryisoftennot rich enough, or lov ing enough, or generous enough to keep us at home." They will float forever in theirship, "a book in the formof a bottle tossed into the sea by all those weeping mothers so sick of waiting," always en route. Finally, as in Madame Bovary, figurative language permeates the prose matrix of the original French text, creating a lyricism inevitably reduced by translation. Thus, for lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll example, its title, Partir, evokes a state of feeling,whereas themore specific Leaving Tangier sacrifices that evocative potential. The novel nonetheless compellingly analyzes postcolonial dreamers and their dreams while critiquing theunder side of globalization?the internal ized self-hatred that causes one to long forwhat one is not: "He [Azel] wondered why Moroccans did not feelAfrican and knew noth ing about their own continent." Denying reality and roots, these dreamers lose themselves. Michele Levy North Carolina A&T University Roberto Bolaho. The Skating Rink. Chris Andrews, tr. New York. New Directions. 2009. 182 pages. $21.95. ISBN 978-0-8112-1713-2 By now Roberto Bolano's inter national reputation as a writer of exceptional ability should be secure. His novels and stories have pushed the limitsof fictionintonew and exciting places that only writ ers of a certain caliber are able to accomplish. In the past three years, two masterpieces have been post humously translated into English: The Savage Detectives in 2007, and 2666 in 2008. The territoryof these two "big" books is as vast, engag ing, and limitless as the human imagination. Ifno other Bolano text were ever published again, his con tribution toworld literature would be invaluable. Even so, for the past several years thepublishing house New Directions, with translator Chris Andrews, has been publish ing Bolano's smaller, quieter books. While these books do not map the same territorycovered by the two novels published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, they are, nonetheless, exceptional in every way. Illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll The latestof thesequieterworks ^^^H isThe SkatingRink.Firstpublished in ^^^H Spanish in 1993, thenovel is told in ^^^H the first person by three male narra- ^^^H tors,Remo Mor?n, Gaspar Heredia, ^^^H and Enric Rosquelles. The Skating ^^^H Rink recounts thedeath of awoman ^^^H in theSpanish coastal town ofZ. At the center of the lives of thenarra- ^^^H tors is the skaterNuria Marti. As ^^^H with most of Bolano's fiction,each ^^^H character is in some way running ^^^H away from something, is in some ^^^H way broken by the events in their ^^^H lives. Mor?n, a minor entrepreneur, and Heredia, a vagabond living in a campground and employed by Mor?n, are Latin American trans plants to Spain, while Rosquelles, a Catalan, is a public servant work ing for the mayor's office. Nuria, meanwhile, is a skater attempting ^^^J to secure a spot on the Spanish skat ing team. The entangled relation- ^^^J ships of these characters are com plex enough, but Bolano places them ^^^J within an almost gothic backdrop. Mythologically speaking, at the heart of every labyrinth...