Javier Cercas

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Cercas and the second or maternal family name is Mena.
Javier Cercas
Javier Cercas (2019)
Born
Javier Cercas Mena

1962 (age 61–62)
Ibahernando, Spain
Nationality Spanish
Alma mater University of Girona
Occupation(s) professor, writer

Javier Cercas Mena (born 1962 in Ibahernando) is a Spanish writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain.

He was born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, Spain. He is a frequent contributor to the Catalan edition of El País and the Sunday supplement. He worked for two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States.

He is one of a group of well-known Spanish novelists, which includes Julio Llamazares, Andrés Trapiello, and Jesus Ferrero, who have published fiction in the vein of "historical memory", focusing on the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist State.

Soldiers of Salamis (translated by Anne McLean) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004, and McLean's translations of his novels The Speed of Light and Outlaws were shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2008 and 2016 respectively.

In 2014–15, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature in St Anne's College, Oxford. In 2016 he was awarded the European Book Prize for The Imposter.

Bibliography

  • 1987, El móvil
  • 1989, El inquilino (The Tenant and the Motive) (English translation, 2005)
  • 1994, La obra literaria de Gonzalo Suárez
  • 1997, El vientre de la ballena
  • 1998, Una buena temporada
  • 2000, Relatos reales
  • 2001, Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2004)
  • 2005, La velocidad de la luz (The Speed of Light) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2006)
  • 2009, Anatomía de un instante (The Anatomy of a Moment) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2011)
  • 2012, Las leyes de la frontera (published as Outlaws) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2014)
  • 2014, El Impostor (The Impostor) (English translation by Frank Wynne, 2017)
  • 2017, El monarca de las sombras (Literatura Random House, Feb 2017)
  • 2018, The Blind Spot (MacLeHose Press) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2018)
  • 2019, Terra Alta (Even the Darkest Night) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2022)