Benno von Archimboldi is the pen name of the fictional German author Hans Reiter (1920-), one of the central characters in Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes...

's 2666.

He is introduced in the first part of the novel, "The Part About the Critics", as a mysterious and elusive figure. After learning that Archimboldi has recently been sighted in Mexico, three of the critics, Jean-Claude Pelletier, Manuel Espinoza, and Liz Norton, travel to Santa Teresa (the fictional counterpart to real-life Ciudad Juárez) in pursuit of his trail. While they are unsuccessful, they learn that his real name is Hans Reiter.

From then on, Archimboldi effectively disappears until he resurfaces in the last part of the novel ("The Part About Archimboldi"), which tells the bildungsroman-like story of his childhood in Germany, his experiences fighting in World War II, his relationship with his wife, Ingeborg, and his development as a writer. The novel concludes as he leaves for Mexico, at the behest of his sister in order to pursue his imprisoned nephew.

Life

The fictional Archimboldi was born in Prussia in 1920 as Hans Reiter. His father was a one-legged soldier who fought in World War I, and his mother was "one-eyed" (blind in one eye). He was preoccupied with seaweed and diving as a child; for a long time, the only book he read and carried was Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region. He considered the birth of his younger sister, Lotte, at the age of 10, to be the "best thing that had ever happened to him."

After leaving school at 13, Reiter eventually went to work as a servant in the country house of the Baron von Zumpe, where his mother was also employed. There he befriended Hugo Halder, the baron's nephew, who introduced him to the wider world of literature. At the house, he also encountered for the first time the baron's daughter, the future Baroness von Zumpe (and later, Mrs. Bubis). After the baron closed the house, Reiter left to work in Berlin.

Reiter was drafted into the Nazi German army in 1939. He spent most of the war fighting in the eastern front. He was eventually captured and placed in an Allied POW camp. His literary career, for which he was to become famous, began in Cologne, Germany, where he settled after the war.

Literary career

Reiter adopted a pen-name to avoid being connected with a murder he committed in a US POW camp. His surname, "Benno von Archimboldi," was modeled after an Italian painter - Guiseppe Arcimboldo. This painter came to Reiter's attention through reading the notebooks of a Ukrainian man in whose house Reiter wintered during the Nazi offensive into Russia.

Archimboldi's long-time publisher was Mr. Bubis. Bubis was nearly alone in recognizing Archimboldi's talent. After Bubis died, the reins of his publishing house were turned over to his wife, Mrs. Bubis (the former Baroness von Zumpe), with whom Archimboldi had an occasionally amorous and lifetime friendship.

Works

In 2666, the following fictional works are listed in chronological order of their publication:

• Lüdicke
• The Endless Rose
• The Leather Mask (part of a trilogy with D'Arsonval and The Garden)
• Rivers of Europe
• Bifurcaria Bifurcata
• Inheritance
• Saint Thomas
• The Blind Woman
• The Black Sea
• Lethaea
• The Lottery Man
• The Father
• The Return

The following works were presumably written after The Return, but in uncertain order:

• D'Arsonval
• The Garden
• Mitzi's Treasure
• Railroad Perfection
• The Berlin Underworld (a collection of mostly war stories)
• Bitzius (a novel about the Swiss novelist Jeremias Gotthelf
  Jeremias Gotthelf
  Albert Bitzius , Swiss novelist, best known by his pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf, was born at Murten, where his father was pastor.In 1804 the home was moved to Utzenstorf, a village in the Bernese Emmental...
  
  )
• The King of the Forest
• The Head (his latest novel as of the present in "The Part About the Critics")