Episode 1: The Prefiguration of Lalo Cura by Roberto Bolaño

The Joy of Serious Literature

We begin small--with a single short story by Latin America's greatest 21st century novelist, Roberto Bolaño. Consisting solely of a monologue half-spoken and half-screamed at us by a cartel hitman born into the Colombian underground porn industry, "The Prefiguration Lalo Cura" forces us to reconsider the place of pornography within the pantheon of art, to think carefully about what it is exactly that allows some movies to be transformed into films, and gaze deeply into the realization that the difference between sanity and insanity might only be a close encounter with a particular penis while still germinating in your mother's womb.