Our hero, Jaime Deza, separated from his wife in Madrid, is a bit adrift in London until his old friend Sir Peter Wheeler--retired Oxford don and semi-retired master spy--recruits him for a new career in British Intelligence. Deza possesses a rare gift for seeing behind the masks people wear. He is soon observing interviews conducted by Her Majesty's secret service: variously shady international businessmen one day, would-be coup leaders the next. Seductively, this metaphysical thriller explores past, present, and future in the ever-more-perilous 21st century. This compelling and enigmatic...

Slippery figures in anomalous situations - ghosts, spies, bodyguards, criminals- haunt these stories by Javier Marias: the characters come bearing their strange and special secrets, and never leave our minds. In one story, a man obsessed with his much younger lover endlessly videotapes her every move, and then confides his surprising plans for her; in another, a ghost can't stop resigning from his job. Masterfully, Marias manages in a small space to perplex and delight. "The short story fits Marias like a glove," as Le point noted. His stories have been hailed as "formidably intelligent" (The...

"El mas sutil y talentoso escritor de la literatura espanola contemporanea." --"The Boston Globe"
En los cuentos de "Cuando fui mortal" se halla, como senalo en su dia la critica, "la oportunidad de abrir la puerta para vislumbrar el universo unico de uno de los mejores novelistas contemporaneos." Por aqui se pasea toda una serie de personajes turbadores: un medico espanol que visita de noche las casas parisinas de mujeres casadas; un guardaespaldas aficionado al hipodromo que deseara que haya muerto el hombre a quien protege; una aspirante a actriz porno que aguarda la sesion de rodaje...

Un profesor espanol narra sus experiencias durante dos singulares anos en la historica Universidad de Oxford, una ciudad fuera del mundo y del tiempo.
Todas las almas coincide con un nombre bien conocido en Oxford, el All Souls College, miembro del grupo de colegios que integran la famosa universidad. Con una buena dosis de humor negro, el narrador nos presenta una serie de cautivadores y extraordinariamente divertidos personajes: su amante casada, Clare Bayes, una mujer condicionada por algo que presencio pero que no recuerda; su amigo Cromer-Blake, un hombre que vive...

Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me is a riveting novel of infidelity and a man trapped by a terrible secret.

Marta has only just met Victor when she invites him to dinner at her Madrid apartment while her husband is away on business. When her two-year-old son finally falls asleep, Marta and Victor retreat to the bedroom. Undressing, she feels suddenly ill; and in his arms, inexplicably, she dies. What should Victor do? Remove the compromising tape from the answering machine? Leave food for the child for breakfast? These are just his first steps, but he soon takes matters further;...

By one of the most important voices in contemporary world literature, a darkly comic novel about that most British of institutions, Oxford University.
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,...

A dozen stories by Javier Marias, -the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature- (The Boston Globe).
Victims of mistaken identity, sponging relatives, amateur sleuths, eavesdroppers, professional liars, assassins, and failed bodyguards populate the short stories in When I Was Mortal. Plots turn on curious exigencies--a woman about to star in her first porn film; a night doctor who adds new meaning to -specialist-; a ghost whose neglect is greatly resented.

A story of love and memory.
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 traveling 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,...

A travs de la pericia cinematogrfica de Ruibrriz, llamado Roy, un joven espaol contratado como asesor de idioma en el rodaje de una pelcula de Elvis Presley, el talento narrativo y el humor de Javier Maras arrastran al lector a una aventura en la que el brillo que envuelve a unos personajes hollywoodienses encubre tanta miseria humana como la reinante en los mafiosos antros mexicanos donde, a raz de un altercado, se inicia la pesadilla en que se convertir la juventud del protagonista. La aventura, el infortunio, la sed de venganza y la traicin marcan el destino de un hombre que se sentir...