Javier Marías

Edici n limitada de este estuche con tres novelas de Javier Mar as esenciales para sus lectores pasados y futuros Contiene: Todas las almas, Coraz n tan blanco y Ma ana en la batalla piensa en m . Reunimos en este estuche tres de las novelas m s queridas, le das y citadas de Javier Mar as, ya convertidas en cl sicos indiscutibles de la literatura contempor nea: Todas las almas, Coraz n tan blanco y Ma ana en la batalla piensa en m . Los lectores encontrar n en todas ellas los temas habituales del autor, como la fuerza del pasado, las injerencias de lo secreto en nuestras vidas, las dificultades que experimentamos para conocer a los dem s y por supuesto el amor, sin que se eche en falta en ninguna la iron a ni el admirable ritmo de la prosa de Mar as. Un estuche para seguir celebrando una obra que, desde el fallecimiento del autor en 2022, ha demostrado su indiscutible centralidad en el canon literario en lengua espa ola. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION A limited-edition box set with three essential novels by Javier Mar as, for his long-time readers and any future new readers. Includes All Souls, A Heart So White, and Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me. This box set gathers three of the most beloved, read, and quoted novels by Javier Mar as, ones that have already become indisputable classics of contemporary literature: All Souls, A Heart So White, and Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me. In these novels, readers will find the author's recurring themes, such as the strength of the past, the interference of secrets in our lives, the struggles we go through in getting to know others, and of course love, without missing Mar a's irony or his admirable rhythmic prose. A box set to continue celebrating the great work that, since the author's death in 2022, has proven its indisputable importance in the Spanish-language literary canon.

'The most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature' Boston Globe'No one else, anywhere, is writing quite like this' Daily Telegraph A thrilling new literary offering from the acclaimed author of The Infatuations and A Heart So White'For a while, she wasn't sure that her husband was her husband. Sometimes she thought he was, and sometimes not...'Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson meet in Madrid. Young and in love, they quickly decide to spend their lives together - never suspecting that they will grow to be total strangers, both living under the shadow of disappearances. Tomás, half-Spanish and half-English, has an extraordinary gift for languages and accents. Leaving Berta to study at Oxford, he catches the interest of a certain government agency, and its mysterious agent, Bertram Tupra. Tomás is determined to evade the agent's attentions but his fate is sealed by an escalating series of events that will affect the rest of his life - and that of his beloved Berta. Finishing his time at Oxford, he returns to Madrid to marry her, already knowing that the life they planned has been lost forever. Darkly gripping, Berta Isla examines a relationship condemned to secrecy and concealment, to pretence and conjecture, to resentment mingled with loyalty. With meticulous insight and understanding of the human soul, Marías examines the urge to change our destiny, and the hopeless exile we bring upon ourselves.

In these short, capricious and irreverent portraits of twenty-six great writers, from Joyce to Nabokov, Sterne to Wilde, Javier Marías, winner of the Dublin IMPAC prize and author of the bestselling A Heart So White, throws unexpected, and very human, light on authors too often enshrined in the halo of artistic sainthood. Revealing that Conrad actually hated sailing and Emily Brontë was so tough she was known as 'The Major', among many other stories of eccentricity, drunkenness and even murder, this joyful book uses unusual angles and peculiar details to illuminate writers' lives in a new way. Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.

In the dark narratives that make up When I Was Mortal by Javier Marías, winner of the Dublin IMPAC prize and author of the bestselling A Heart So White, a dapper Paris doctor dispenses a treatment for dissatisfied wives. A mother auditions for her first porn movie. A writer working on a study of pain makes himself the subject of his experiments. A voyeur mistakes a murderer for a fellow peeping tom ... these are some of the characters observed by the narrator of these chilling stories. Ironic, unsettling, imbued with dread and with droll humour, Javier Marías' short tales cast a shrewd, sardonic eye on humanity. Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.

Dark Back of Time is a compelling story of the way in which reality blurs into fiction by Javier Marías, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. It is translated by Esther Allen in Penguin Modern Classics. 'We lose everything because everything remains except us', says the mysterious narrator of this extraordinary novel, which meditates on the transience, chance and fragility of life. As a man called Javier Marías recalls the strange events and people that shaped his past, including ghostly literary figures, a pilot, an adventurer, a brother who died as a child and the king of an island in the Caribbean, we begin to question the nature of time, memory and reality itself. Here the writer is both a keeper of memories and a purveyor of illusions, destined to be lost in the dark back of time. Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne.'I was enthralled by his strange mix of made-up memories, lost experiences and real-life fantasies' Marina Warner, Guardian 'He uses language like an anatomist uses a scalpel to lay bare the innermost secrets of that strangest of species, the human being' W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz

The Man of Feeling is a story of love and memory by Javier Marías, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. On a train journey from Paris to Madrid a young opera singer becomes fascinated by those in his compartment: a middle-aged businessman, his alluring wife and their male travelling companion. Soon his life of constant travel, luxury hotels, rehearsal and performance will become entangled with these three people, and the singer will find himself fatefully consumed by Natalia's beauty. The Man of Feeling is the haunting story of the birth and death of a passion, told in retrospect. Intricately interweaving desire and memory, it explores the nature of love, and asks whether we can ever truly recall something that no longer exists.

All Souls is a compelling black comedy of Oxford life by Javier Marías, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. This Penguin Modern Classics edition features a new Introduction by John Banville, author of The Sea. The pretty young tutor Clare Bayes attracts many eyes at an Oxford college dinner, not least those of a visiting Spanish lecturer (desperate to escape his conversation with an obese economist about an eighteenth-century cider tax). As they begin an affair, meeting in hotel bedrooms away from the eyes of Clare's husband, the Spaniard finds himself increasingly drawn into the strange world of Oxford, 'one of the cities in the world where the least work gets done', in a story of lust, loneliness, vanity and memory. Filled with brilliant set pieces and pin-sharp observation, All Souls is a masterpiece of black humour.

A Heart so White is the breathtaking international bestseller and IMPAC Award-winning masterpiece by Javier Marías, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. This Penguin Modern Classics edition features a new Introduction by Jonathan Coe. A Heart so White begins as, In the middle of a family lunch Teresa, just married, goes to the bathroom, unbuttons her blouse and shoots herself in the heart. What made her kill herself immediately after her honeymoon? Years later, this mystery fascinates the young newlywed Juan, whose father was married to Teresa before he married Juan's mother. As Juan edges closer to the truth, he begins to question his own relationships, and whether he really wants to know what happened. Haunting and unsettling, A Heart So White is a breathtaking portrayal of two generations, two marriages, the relentless power of the past and the terrible price of knowledge.

Javier Mar as rinde homenaje en este libro a uno de los novelistas contempor neos que m s admiraba: Vladimir Nabokov. «Mar as es sencillamente asombroso . -Ali Smith Javier Mar as rinde homenaje en este libro a uno de los novelistas contempor neos que m s admiraba: Vladimir Nabokov. Su intenci n era conmemorar a un escritor con el que se sent a en deuda literaria y animar a los lectores a que lo busquen con m s frecuencia. Mar as nos cuenta, por ejemplo, que un d a de 1950 la mujer de Nabokov, V ra, logr detenerlo cuando se dispon a a quemar los primeros cap tulos de Lolita, agobiado por las dudas y las dificultades. Tambi n que le molestaba mucho que le atribuyeran influencias, fueran de Joyce, Kafka, Proust o de Dostoyevski. Y que los mayores xtasis los experiment a solas: cazando mariposas, creando problemas de ajedrez, traduciendo a Pushkin y escribiendo. Una semblanza titulada «Vladimir Nabokov en xtasis , la traducci n de dieciocho poemas, algunos problemas de ajedrez con sus soluciones en versi n de F lix de Az a, los art culos «El canon Nabokov y «Fantasmas le dos , la pieza «La novela m s melanc lica (Lolita recontada) y una selecta colecci n de fotograf as conforman este emocionante testimonio. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Javier Mar as's tribute to one of the contemporary novelists he admired most: Vladimir Nabokov. "Mar as is simply amazing." -Ali Smith In this book, Javier Mar as pays homage to one of the contemporary novelists he admired most: Vladimir Nabokov. Its goal is both to commemorate an author to whom felt indebted and to inspire readers to explore Nabokov's books for themselves. Mar as tells us about the day in 1950 when Nabokov's wife, V ra, managed to stop the frustrated author from burning the first few chapters of Lolita. We learn that he hated hearing critics cite his supposed influences, whether Joyce, Kafka, Proust or Dostoyevski. And that he found his greatest joys in solitary pursuits: collecting butterflies, solving chess problems, translating Pushkin, and writing. A biographical sketch entitled "Vladimir Nabokov in Bliss"; 18 translated poems, chess problems and the F lix de Az a version of their solutions; the articles "The Nabokov Canon" and "Read Ghosts"; "The Most Melancholy Novel (Lolita Retold)"; and a curated selection of photos add up to a moving tribute to one of the most influential authors of our time.

Un sentido tributo de Javier Mar as a la figura y la literatura de William Faulkner Este volumen es un sentido tributo de Javier Mar as a la figura y la literatura de William Faulkner, uno de los escritores m s importantes del siglo XX, ganador del Premio Nobel en 1950. Su pr logo es toda una declaraci n de intenciones: «Si la nica manera de que Faulkner vuelva a ser m s le do y m s recordado es no ir con sus libros por delante, como ser a lo justo, sino con su persona y sus dichos y an cdotas --esto es, con lo que no escribi --, entonces hay que plegarse e intentarlo . As , Mar as traza en estas p ginas el retrato de un personaje enigm tico, t mido e impertinente que se tomaba tan en serio su actividad como tan poco en serio a s mismo. Lleno de an cdotas apasionantes sobre el autor, como que William Faulkner escribi Mientras agonizo en el plazo de seis semanas, que le a el Quijote todos los a os o que public Santuario por dinero, este libro incluye dos semblanzas imprescindibles: «William Faulkner a caballo y «Faulkner habla . Completan la edici n la traducci n de doce poemas procedentes de A Green Bough (1933), uno de sus primeros libros, y unas «Notas de viaje por Faulkner, Mississippi , de Manuel Rodr guez Rivero, quien recorri las ruinas de Yoknapatawpha y rastre los vestigios de su creador en Oxford y en New Albany. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION A heart-felt tribute to the figure and literature of William Faulkner, by Javier Mar as. This volume is Javier Mar as' heart-felt tribute to the figure and literature of William Faulkner, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, 1950 Nobel Prize winner. His prologue is an absolute declaration of intentions: "If the only way to draw more readers back to Faulkner and help him be more remembered is not to begin with his own books first--as it is fair--but with his persona, his sayings and anecdotes--meaning, what he didn't write--then we must yield and try." Thus, in these pages, Mar as outlines the portrait of an enigmatic, shy, and impertinent character that takes his craft more seriously than himself. Filled with thrilling anecdotes about the author, such as that William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in the span of six weeks, that he read Don Quixote every year, or that he published Sanctuary for money, this book includes two essential profiles: "William Faulkner on horseback" and "Faulkner speaks." This edition is complemented by twelve poems translated from A Green Bough (1933), one of his first books, and some "Travel notes by Faulkner, Mississippi," by Manuel Rodr guez Rivero, who trekked across the ruins of Yoknapatawpha and traced the remnants of its creator in Oxford and New Albany.

EL MEJOR HOMENAJE ES LEERLO «Dos a os de tareas dominicales que prueban mi nula disposici n a santificar las fiestas... Al releer estos art culos seguidos, me parece que he opinado demasiado . Estas palabras sirven de introducci n a un Javier Mar as ins lito, cotidiano, atento a lo que ocurre a su alrededor y que atraviesa todos los estados de nimo imaginables: lo vemos evocativo e indignado, a menudo pertido y bromista, pero tambi n atribulado por la sa a espa ola que a n ti e nuestro tiempo; melanc lico, risue o, grave, ir nico, compasivo o desenga ado, siempre logra contagiarnos y no nos deja indiferentes con su Mano de sombra. Javier Mar as es novelista hasta cuando opina, y cree que para decir tan s lo lo que ya piensa la poca por nosotros, lo consabido, m s vale callarse. As , sus art culos no exponen nunca lo previsible, porque, a diferencia de tantos otros escritores, l reflexiona como si contara, y permite que asistamos al discurrir de ese pensamiento con tanta intriga como se asiste al desenvolvimiento de una historia. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION THE BEST HOMAGE IS TO READ HIM "Two years of Sunday scribblings that prove my refusal to honor this day of rest... Upon rereading these articles, I wonder if maybe I've been too opinionated." These words are the perfect introduction to Javier Mar as's unique style, his attention to the mundane and the world around him. This collection of his columns takes us through his many moods: provocative and indignant, cheeky and jocular, but genuinely pained by the enduring scars of Spanish history; melancholy, cheerful, grave, ironic, compassionate or disillusioned. Whatever the tone, they never leave us indifferent. Javier Mar as the novelist is present even in his opinion pieces. When faced with the choice of spouting conventional wisdom or staying quiet, he preferred to say nothing at all. His articles are never predictable because, unlike other translators, he approached every text as the opportunity to tell a story. Seeing his thoughts evolve is as intriguing as the development of any plotline.

Javier Mar as realiza retratos breves de sus escritores preferidos en lengua espa ola. «Mar as es sencillamente asombroso . -Ali Smith «Javier Mar as es un escritor maravilloso . -John Banville El origen de Miramientos se encuentra en el ap ndice «Artistas perfectos , que cierra el libro Vidas escritas. En l, Javier Mar as comentaba los retratos fotogr ficos de treinta y siete autores, todos extranjeros y todos muertos. La exclusi n ah de escritores en espa ol lo llev a escribir para la revista Cuadernos Cervantes los comentarios a los retratos de Valle-Incl n, Borges, Aleixandre, Benet, Bioy Casares, Garc a Lorca, Victoria Ocampo, Fernando Savater, Cabrera Infante, Neruda, Mendoza, Mart nez Sarri n, Cernuda y Quiroga, y a recogerlos, posteriormente y junto a otros retratos, en este volumen que completa con un «Autorretrato farsante dedicado a s mismo, una tentaci n que, como el propio Javier Mar as reconoce, no pudo evitar, pero a la que intent enfrentarse con el mismo «miramiento . ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Javier Mar as profiles a selection of his favorite Spanish-language authors This book has its origins in "Perfect Artists," the appendix to Javier Mar as's Written Lives, which profiles thirty-seven authors, all of them foreign and all of them dead. The absence from that list of any authors writing in Spanish led him to publish a new collection of profiles in Cuadernos Cervantes magazine, featuring Valle-Incl n, Borges, Aleixandre, Benet, Bioy Casares, Garc a Lorca, Victoria Ocampo, Fernando Savater, Cabrera Infante, Neruda, Mendoza, Mart nez Sarri n, Cernuda and Quiroga. These descriptions and more are collected in this volume, accompanied by a "fake self-portrait" of the author - for, as Mar as observes, he could not resist the temptation to turn the same "gaze" on himself.

GANADOR DEL PREMIO IMPAC DE DUBL N Ampliamente considerada una obra maestra, esta deslumbrante novela sobre los secretos familiares narra el poder implacable del pasado, de la mano del galardonado autor de Los enamoramientos y considerado "el mejor escritor de Espa a" -Roberto Bola o, autor superventas de Los detectives salvajes. Una novela hipn tica sobre el secreto y su conveniencia posible, sobre el matrimonio, el asesinato y la instigaci n, sobre la sospecha, el hablar y el callar y la persuasi n: sobre los corazones tan blancos que poco a poco se van ti endo y acaban siendo lo que nunca quisieron ser.«No he querido saber, pero he sabido que una de las ni as, cuando ya no era ni a y no hac a mucho que hab a regresado de su viaje de bodas, entr en el cuarto de ba o, se puso frente al espejo, se abri la blusa, se quit el sost n y se busc el coraz n con la punta de la pistola... Este es el ya legendario comienzo de un cl sico contempor neo, Coraz n tan blanco, cuyo protagonista y narrador, Juan Ranz, prefiere siempre no saber, consciente de lo peligroso que resulta escuchar: los o dos no tienen p rpados, y lo que les llega ya no se olvida. Traductor e int rprete de profesi n, es l ahora el reci n casado, y en su propio viaje de novios, en La Habana, asomado al balc n, es confundido por una desconocida que espera en la calle, y sin querer escucha una conversaci n de hotel. A partir de entonces «presentimientos de desastre envolver n su matrimonio. Pero la clave de ese malestar quiz est en el pasado, pues su padre hubo de casarse tres veces para que l pudiera nacer. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION WINNER OF THE IMPAC DUBLIN AWARD - Widely considered a masterpiece, a breathtaking novel about family secrets that chronicles the relentless power of the past--from the award-winning author of The Infatuations and "Spain's best writer" (Roberto Bola o, national bestselling author of The Savage Detectives). A breathtaking novel about family secrets, winner of the 1997 Dublin IMPAC Prize for the best novel published worldwide in English, and arguably Javier Mar as's masterpiece. Javier Mar as's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy―its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility―hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Mar as elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence. ("My hands are of your color; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"―Shakespeare's Macbeth.)

Tomas Nevinson, byvshij agent britanskikh spetssluzhb, posle otstavki, kotoruju schital okonchatelnoj, vernulsja na rodinu v Ispaniju, k svoej zhene Berte Isle, no neozhidanno poluchil novoe zadanie - razoblachit terroristku, povinnuju v gibeli desjatkov ljudej. Za gody sluzhby Tomas tverdo usvoil, chto borba so zlom trebuet samykh reshitelnykh mer, i privyk slepo vypolnjat ljubye prikazy. Odnako teper ego presledujut muchitelnye somnenija. Mozhno li brat na sebja rol zaschitnika spravedlivosti i mstitelja, obkhodja zakon? I mozhno li prestupit zapoved "Ne ubij" vo imja vysshikh tselej, oberegaja mir ot grozjaschikh emu bed? Poslednij roman Khavera Mariasa "Tomas Nevinson" (2021) javljaetsja prodolzheniem ego znamenitoj "Berty Isly", no v to zhe vremja eto istorija s samostojatelnym sjuzhetom. Kniga uzhe perevedena na mnogie jazyki i poluchila samye vysokie otsenki kritiki. Khaver Marias (1951-2022) - odin iz samykh krupnykh ispanskikh pisatelej, avtor 17 romanov, izdannykh v 59 stranakh, laureat desjatkov literaturnykh nagrad, sredi kotorykh ispanskie premija Korolevskoj akademii, Natsionalnaja premija, Premija kritiki, a takzhe frantsuzskaja "Femina", italjanskaja Grintsane-Kavur, mezhdunarodnye premii Alberto Moravia i Formentor. Perevod s ispanskogo: Natalja Bogomolova

El hombre sentimental, escrita con un ritmo que se acelera progresivamente hasta un inesperado desenlace, es el libro que, como se al Juan Benet, dio inicio a una etapa nueva y m s ntima en la obra de Javier Mar as. «El hombre sentimental es una historia de amor en la que el amor no se ve ni se vive, sino que se anuncia y recuerda , dice Javier Mar as en su ep logo. Y se pregunta: « Puede esto ocurrir? . Un famoso tenor, conocido como el Le n de N poles, es el encargado de contar esa historia sucedida cuatro a os atr s, durante una visita a Madrid para ensayar el Otello de Verdi. Los personajes son la misteriosa y melanc lica Natalia Manur; su marido, el banquero Manur, y el imperturbable y obsequioso se or Dato, acompa ante de profesi n. A su alrededor se mueven otros secundarios: una prostituta apresurada, una vieja gloria de la escena oper stica, un minucioso viudo, un antiguo amor. Es esta una novela sobre pasiones llevadas hasta las ltimas consecuencias, que en los tiempos que corren s lo son verdaderamente ltimas para el hombre sentimental, que parece ser el artista o el pensador, pero que tal vez sea, por el contrario, el hombre de negocios, el hombre de acci n. En este libro, que contiene una declaraci n de amor gravemente encendida, el autor no ha renunciado a la iron a, a la leve burla impl cita de sus h roes, a los que no puede evitar tomarse muy en serio y algo a broma al mismo tiempo, mientras el ritmo se acelera progresivamente hasta un inesperado desenlace. El hombre sentimental fue galardonada en 2000 con el Premio Internazionale Ennio Flaiano de Novela. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Mar as's riveting novel about an opera singer and an extramarital affair. Glinting like a moonstone with layers of emotion, The Man of Feeling is a sleek and strange tale of cosmopolitan love. An affair between a married woman and a young man just becoming an opera star (curiously helped along by the husband's factotum) meets with adamant resistance from the implacable husband. Narrated by the young opera singer, the novel opens as he recalls traveling on a train from Milan to Venice, silently absorbed for hours by the woman asleep opposite his seat. In the measured tones of memory, The Man of Feeling revolves on the poles of anticipation and recollection. The peculiar rarified life lived in the world's luxury hotels, a life of rehearsal and performance, the constant travel and ghost-like detachment of our protagonist adds a deeper tone to the novel's weave of desire and detachment, of consideration and reconsideration: its epigraph cites William Hazlitt: "I think myself into love, /And I dream myself out of it." As Mar as remarks in a brief afterword, this is a love story "in which love is neither seen nor experienced, but announced and remembered." Can love be recalled truly when it no longer exists? That twist will continue to revolve in the reader's mind, conjuring up in its disembodied way Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. Beautifully translated into English for the first time by Margaret Jull Costa, this fascinating and eerie early novel by Javier Mar as bears out his reputation for the "dazzling" (TLS) and "startling" (The New York Times).

Todas las almas cuenta la historia de los dos brumosos y singulares a os que el narrador pas en la Universidad de Oxford, una ciudad fuera del mundo y del tiempo. Y fuera de ambos viven los cautivadores personajes de esta novela: la amante casada del narrador, Clare Bayes, una mujer condicionada por algo a lo que asisti pero que no recuerda; el amigo Cromer-Blake, homosexual ir nico que vive fabricando experiencias intensas para una vejez que prev solitaria; el ya retirado y sagaz profesor Toby Rylands; el merodeador Alan Marriott, con su perro de tres patas y sus conocimientos sobre la «pareja espantosa que todos tenemos; y muchos otros, algunos extraordinariamente divertidos, hasta llegar al personaje que viene de otro tiempo, el enigm tico escritor John Gawsworth. En un mundo de secretos e intrigas, de ritos ceremoniosos y cenas disparatadas, de pasados ocultos y enfermizos presentes, el narrador va tejiendo su propia «perturbaci n y su propia historia con la de los habitantes de la ciudad «conservada en alm bar , hasta descubrir que elementos tan dispares como un puente ferroviario sobre un r o en la India, unos amantes desdichados, una carrera de esp a o la diminuta isla de Redonda, pasar n a formar parte de su vida, marcada ya para siempre por esas relaciones inesperadas de amor y amistad entre todas las almas. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION From one of the most important voices in world literature--and the award-winning author of The Infatuations--a darkly comic campus novel and love story about that most British of institutions, Oxford University. - "Javier Mar as is in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers." --J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace In All Souls, a visiting Spanish lecturer, viewing Oxford through a prismatic detachment, is alternately amused, puzzled, delighted, and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. A bit lonely, not always able to see his charming but very married mistress, he casts about for activity; he barely has to teach. Yet so much goes into simply "being" at Oxford: friendship, opinion-mongering, one-upmanship, finicky exchanges of favors, gossip, adultery, book-collecting, back-patting, backstabbing. Mar as demonstrates a sweet tooth for eccentricity in this novel from "one of the best contemporary writers" (J. M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature).

Üks naine jälgib hommikuti kohvikus abielupaari, kelle elurõõm ja vastastikune hoolivus toovad tema argiellu iga päev kübekese hingerahu ja usku inimestesse. Kuni ühel päeval nad enam ei tule ja Maria saab tahtmatult tunnistajaks lähematele ja kaugematele armumistele ja surmadele. Tegelikud ja kujuteldavad vestlused, kirjandusklassika tõlgendused ja filosoofilised mõtisklused keerlevad ümber armumise, käimapaneva jõu, mida on peetud - või tahetud pidada - puhtaks ja isetuks tundeks, mis võib aga olla ka alatu ja surmatoov, tõugata ebaeetilistele ja isegi kriminaalsetele tegudele. Saabub hetk, mil proovile pannakse ka Maria enda südametunnistus ja õiglustunne ning tal tuleb musketär Athose sõnadega nentida: "Jah, mõrv. Ei midagi rohkemat." Javier Marias (1951-2022) on viimaste kümnendite üks kaalukamaid Hispaania romaanikirjanikke, kelle nimi kõlas sageli võimalike Nobeli-kandidaatide seas. Ta töötas hispaania kirjanduse õppejõuna Oxfordi ja Madriidi ülikoolides ning tegutses päevalehe El Pais kolumnistina. Samuti on mõjukas Mariase panus ingliskeelse kirjanduse tõlkijana, tema vahendusel on hispaania keeles ilmunud Sterne'i, Faulkneri, Nabokovi, Salingeri jt loomingut. Marias on kirjutanud 16 romaani, pälvinud kümneid auhindu eri riikides, teda on tõlgitud ligi 50 keelde. Meil on temalt seni ilmunud romaanid "Nii valge süda" (tlk Marin Mõttus, Varrak 2002) ja "Oxfordi romaan ehk kõik hinged" (tlk Kai Aareleid, Varrak 2012), samuti kirjanike elulooepisoode koondav "Kirjapandud elud" (tlk Maria Kall, LR 2010)." Armumised" (hisp k "Los enamoramientos") ilmus algupärandis 2011. aastal ja oli tema esimene romaan, kus jutustajaks on naine. Siingi armastab kirjanik endale omaselt kasutada korduvaid mõttekäike ja tsitaate, keerutada pikki lauseid, süüvida sügavale mõne tuntud kirjandusteose vastuolulistesse episoodidesse, seades sealjuures kahtluse alla tõe, õigluse, lojaalsuse ja usaldusväärsuse ning tuues pinnale tumedad mõtted ja kinnisideed, samal ajal kui süzheekokkuvõtte põhjal võiks raamatu vabalt paigutada kriminaal- või põnevuskirjanduse zhanri.

BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO GUARDIAN AND THE SPECTATOR The final novel from one of the greatest writers of the past half century'No-one nowadays writes prose like Javier Marías . . . If you're already a fan, you'll know what to expect and rejoice. If you're not, what a treat you have in store' The HeraldTomás Nevinson, a retired MI6 agent, is working for the British Embassy in Madrid when his former handler, the sinister Bertram Tupra, offers to bring him back inside for one last assignment. His mission: to catch and, if necessary, kill a terrorist gone to ground in Northern Spain after bombings in Barcelona and Zaragoza. The trouble is there are three suspects – all women – and it may not actually be any of them. To find out, Nevinson must move incognito to the small town where the three women separately live, and become an intimate friend to each, in the hope of uncovering a clue . . . A philosophical thriller with a climate of suspense to rival le Carré and a psychological depth that is purely Marias’s own, this is a novel that explores the deepest of human questions: in what circumstances can killing be called just? Translated by Margaret Jull Costa'The last word from a master . . . once you've been inside Marías' world, to spend too long outside is unbearable' The Sunday Times'A twisting espionage tale shot through with slantwise humour . . . seductive and inescapably poignant' Observer

"Berta Isla", på ryska. Berta Isla i Tomas Nevinson poznakomilis esche v shkole i reshili nikogda ne rasstavatsja. Uchebu Tomas prodolzhil v Oksforde, no byl tverdo uveren, chto, poluchiv diplom, vernetsja v Madrid. I dejstvitelno vernulsja, no eto byl uzhe ne prezhnij Tomas. On zanjal khoroshuju dolzhnost v britanskom posolstve i zhenilsja na Berte. Odnako ee trevozhat chastye otluchki muzha i peremeny v ego kharaktere. I vdrug ona sluchajno uznajot, chto Tomas, zaverbovannyj britanskimi spetssluzhbami, vedet dvojnuju zhizn... Khaver Marias (1951-2022) - odin iz samykh izvestnykh ispanskikh pisatelej, avtor 17 romanov, perevedennykh na 46 jazykov i izdannykh v 59 stranakh, chlen Ispanskoj korolevskoj akademii, perevodchik i kolumnist gazety "Pais". Ego knigi udostoeny desjatkov samykh pochetnykh natsionalnykh i zarubezhnykh nagrad. Roman "Berta Isla" otmechen v Ispanii Premiej kritiki i nazvan luchshej knigoj goda po versii rjada gazet. Emu takzhe prisuzhdeny premii Dulse Chakon i Lettura 2018 (Italija). Perevodchik: Bogomolova Natalja AleksandrovnaKhudozhnik: Bondarenko Andrej Leonidovich