"Antwerp" is considered by his literary executor Ignacio Echevarría to be the big bang of the Bolaño universe, the loose prose-poem novel was written in 1980 when Bolaño was 27. The book remained unpublished until 2002, when it was published in Spanish as "Amberes", a year before the author's death. It contains a loose narrative structured less around a story arc and more around motifs, reappearing characters and anecdotes, many of which went on to become common material for Bolaño: crimes and campgrounds, drifters and poetry, sex and love, corrupt cops and misfits. The back of the first New Directions edition of the book contains a quote from Bolaño about "Antwerp": "The only novel that doesn't embarrass me is Antwerp."