An indisputable criterion of success for any novelist is when Penguin Modern Classics signs up your backlist, especially when it’s for a five-figure sum. Which is what has happened to Javier Marías. The 60-year-old Spanish writer, whose latest title, The Infatuations (Los enamoramientos), will be published in English in early 2013, joins an exclusive group of Spanish writers in Penguin’s catalogue: Cervantes, Quevedo, Jacinto Benavente, and Lorca. Yes, that’s it. Four writers: the first two of whom died in the 17th century, the next in 1954; although he stopped writing long before that. For Penguin, and most US and UK publishers, it seems that, until now, Spanish literature ended with the … [Read more...] about Spain’s literary giants are lost in English translation
Javier Marías
How do you choose the Iberians of 2011?
Choosing a “person of the year” is rarely easy and when Iberosphere co-editor Andrew Eatwell and I set about deciding on the Iberians of 2011, the difficulties were all too clear. So many events unfold over the course of 12 months: political, economic, cultural, sporting and otherwise. Is a football player more worthy of attention than a politician? Is a writer more important than a banker? Obviously, that depends on what each achieved and how much importance you attach to football, politics, literature and banking. For us, each can be of huge significance to a nation’s state of mind, if not its everyday life. But there is a more general issue. What is it that we are gauging? From the start … [Read more...] about How do you choose the Iberians of 2011?
Javier Marías
Fame doesn’t sit easily with Spain’s most highly regarded contemporary novelist. Though Javier Marías, 60, lives in central Madrid, he has an aversion to computers and mobile phones, placing him in the old-fashioned world of many of his books. And his acidic newspaper columns show him to be deeply unhappy with the world outside his door. But 2011 has been a good year for this prolific author. He published, to great acclaim, Los enamoramientos, a novel exploring love, but also, as the author himself put it, “the inconvenience of the dead coming back to life”. Meanwhile, Penguin has announced that several of his titles will be included on its prestigious Modern Classics roster. “The legacy of … [Read more...] about Javier Marías