Javier Marías
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Javier Marías Franco (born September 20, 1951) is a Spanish novelist, translator and columnist.
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[edit] Life and work
Marías was born in Madrid. His father, Julián Marías, was a teacher and famous philosopher who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing the government of Francisco Franco (Marías gave the narrator of the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy a father with a similar history, and has used the on-going novel in part to explore the effects of this history on the father and his son and their relationship).
Marías wrote his first novel, Los dominios del lobo (The Dominions of the Wolf), at the age of 17, after running away to Paris. His second novel, Travesía del horizonte, an adventure story about an expedition to Antarctica, has been translated into English as Voyage Along the Horizon. After attending the Complutense University of Madrid, Marías turned his attention to translating English novels into Spanish. His translations include work by John Updike, Thomas Hardy, Vladimir Nabokov, and Robert Louis Stevenson. In 1979 he won the Spanish national award for translation for his version of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Between 1983 and 1985 he lectured in Spanish literature and translation at the University of Oxford.
In 1986 Marías published El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling), and in 1988 he published Todas las almas (All Souls), which was set at Oxford. The 1992 novel Corazón tan blanco (A Heart So White) was a great commercial and critical success, and for its English translation, by Margaret Jull Costa, Marías won the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Currently he is completing the final part of the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy.
[edit] Redonda
Marías's sympathetic portrayal of John Gawsworth, the third King of Redonda, in his book, Todas las almas, so touched the "reigning" king Jon Wynne-Tyson that he abdicated and left the throne to Marías in 1997, although Marías' reign has been highly contentious. This course of events was chronicled in detail in his "false novel" Dark Back of Time, a book inspired by the reception of Todas las almas by many people who, falsely according to Marías, believed they were the source of the characters in Todas las almas. Since "taking the throne" of Redonda, Marías has begun a publishing imprint named Reino de Redonda ("Kingdom of Redonda"), and created a literary prize of the same name. Recipients of the prize are awarded several thousand euros and a Redondan duchy. Those honored include Pedro Almodóvar (Duke of Trémula), Francis Ford Coppola (Duke of Megalópolis), John Maxwell Coetzee (Duke of Deshonra), Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Duke of Corso), Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Duke of Tigres), António Lobo Antunes (Duke of Cocodrilos) and A. S. Byatt.[1]
[edit] Other activities
Marías operates a small editorial house for pet editions under the name of Reino de Redonda. He writes a weekly column in El País. An English version of his column "La Zona Fantasma" is included in the monthly magazine The Believer.
Marías was elected to seat R of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) in 2006.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Spanish titles
- Los dominios del lobo (1971)
- Travesía del horizonte (Voyage Along the Horizon, 1972)
- El monarca del tiempo (Dark Back of Time, 1978)
- El siglo (1982)
- El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling, 1986)
- Todas las almas (All Souls, 1989)
- Corazón tan blanco (A Heart So White, 1992)
- Vidas escritas (Written Lives, 1992)
- Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí (Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me, 1994)
- Cuando fui mortal (When I Was Mortal 1996)
- Negra espalda del tiempo (1998)
- Tu rostro mañana 1: Fiebre y lanza (Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear, 2002)
- Tu rostro mañana 2: Baile y sueño (Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream, 2004)
[edit] English translations
- All Souls (1992)
- A Heart So White (1995)
- Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me (1996)
- When I Was Mortal (1999)
- Dark Back of Time (2001)
- The Man of Feeling (2003)
- Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear (2004)
- Voyage Along the Horizon (2006)
- Written Lives (2006)
- Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream (2006)
[edit] References
- ^ Historia del Reino de Redonda, by Pablo Martín Cerone (Spanish)
