One of the most prestigious film and theater actors, John Malkovich created the performance “The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman” with pianist Anastasya Terenkova whose title is taken from the last chapter of The Nazi Literature in the Americas (1996) by the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño.
The novel Nazi literature in the Americas features fictional histories of imaginary Nazis, most all of whom have some connection, however tenuous, to the literary world – both the real one and Bolaño’s completely invented one.
The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman tells the story of a writer for whom aesthetics overlaps with ethics and who considers that the work should be valued above any human ideal. An anonymous narrator tells us about the fictional story of Ramirez Hoffman: a right-wing writer who takes advantage of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, who deposed President Salvador Allende, to launch a poetry campaign that encompasses torture and murder.
The book The Nazi Literature in the Americas portrays, in an encyclopedic way, a set of fictional biographies of imaginary Pan-American authors. These literary Nazis are depicted in a gallery of alienated people, snobs, egocentrics and criminals. In fact, Bolaño admitted that this book was based on the world of letters, and on some of its writers, now heroes, or despicable beings.
The play is considered a one-man show, centered on the character played by Malkovich, the aforementioned Ramirez Hoffman, accompanied by the music chosen by Anastasya Terenkova and performed by trio - violin and bandoneon and piano.
Music composed by Astor Piazzola, Leonid Desytnikov, Johann Paul Westhoff, Antonio Vivaldi, Yefim Rosenfeld, Erik Sati, Sergey Akhunov, Alberto Iglesias …
Created by Anastasya Terenkova and John Malkovich
LITERATURA NAZI DE LAS AMERICAS
Copyright © 1996, Roberto Bolaño
All rights reserved
Produced by Swiss GART GmbH
