Santa Teresa, on the Mexico-US border, is an urban sprawl that draws in lost souls. Among them are three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; and a police detective in love with an elusive older woman. But there is darker side still to the town. It is an emblem of corruption, violence and decadence, and one from which, over the course of a decade, hundreds of women have mysteriously, often brutally, disappeared.

Told in five parts, 2666 is the epic novel that defines one of Latin America's greatest writers and his unique vision of the modern world. Conceived on an astonishing scale, and - in the last years of Roberto Bolano's life - with burning, visionary commitment, it has been greeted across Europe and Latin America as his masterpiece, surpassing even his previous work in inventiveness, imagination, beauty and scope.

`Vital, thrilling and life-enhancing. Readers who haves snacked on a writer such as Haruki Murakami will feast on Roberto Bolano' Sunday Times

`A landmark in what's possible for the novel. Bolano has proven it can do anything' New York Times

`Startling anarchic grace. Bolano has come close to re-imagining the novel' Independent

`A visionary exploration of life and literature' Guardian

Santa Teresa, on the Mexico-US border: an urban sprawl that draws lost souls to it like a vortex. Convicts and academics find themselves here, as does an American sportswriter, a teenage student with her widowed father, and a reclusive, `missing' author. But there is a darker side to the town. As in the real town of Juarez, on which Santa Teresa is based, girls and women are disappearing at an alarming rate . . .

As 2666 progresses, as the sense of conspiracy grows, as the shadow of the apocalypse draws closer, Santa Teresa becomes an emblem of the corruption, violence and decadence of twentieth-century European history.

Written on an astonishing scale, and - in the last years of Roberto Bolano's life - with burning, visionary commitment, 2666 has been greeted across Europe and Latin America as the writer's masterpiece, surpassing even his previous work in imagination, beauty, and scope.

`One of those strange, exquisite, and astonishing experiences that literature offers us only once in a very long time' El Pais

`Bolano's masterwork. An often shockingly raunchy and violent tour de force (though the phrase seems hardly adequate to describe the novel's narrative velocity, polyphonic range, inventiveness, and bravery)' New York Review of Books

`Not just the great Spanish-language novel of this decade, but one of the cornerstones that define an entire literature. 2666 is a magisterial and inimitable' La Vanguardia

`Endlessly in love with people and books, Bolano's last novel ranges over the world and history' Le Monde des Livres

`A work of genius: the work of a master whose voice has all the authority and seeming effortlessness that we associate with the great classics of the ages' Blanco y Negro

`Bolano makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world' Guardian