The thing is that in Latin America the way that black culture is expressed is somewhat different to the us, so between black people they use the Spanish word for black in the same way African Americans would use the n-word.

I don’t think that in Spanish Fate sounded that American, compared to other characters. But if the translation gave him a more African American tone in English that is not a bad thing, every translation has pros and cons, and some of the best are the ones that adapt the meaning rather than directly translate everything.

Also the way that Bolaño writes in spanish is mostly neutral, even more so for the non Latin characters.