Ever heard of Robert Bolaño? Me neither. But apparently he’s pretty hot, for a dead writer. So says the LA Times.

While norteamericanos were rereading dog-eared copies of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera,” a dyslexic, globe-trotting high-school dropout and ex-heroin addict was publishing the most celebrated Latin American novels in three decades.

Then, in 2003, he died.

But the reputation of the Chilean-born Roberto Bolaño, whose old pictures make him look like the guitar for a psychedelic garage band, continued to grow: Young Latin writers in particular sang his praises, and he became, in the Spanish-speaking world, the most admired author of his generation.