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 London Review of Books), "a bracing tonic" (The Chicago Tribune), and "startling" (The New York Times Book Review).

In addition to his own busy career as "one of Europe's most intriguing contemporary writers" (TLS), Javier Marias is also the translator into Spanish of works by Hardy, Stevenson, Conrad, Faulkner, Nabokov, and Laurence Sterne. His love for these authors is the touchstone of Written Lives. Collected here are twenty pieces recounting great writers' lives, "or, more precisely, snippets of writers' lives." Thomas Mann, Rilke, Arthur Conan Doyle, Turgenev, Djuna Barnes, Emily Bronte, Malcolm Lowry, and Kipling appear ("all fairly disastrous individuals"), and "almost nothing" in his stories is invented. Like Isak Dinesen (who "claimed to have poor sight, yet could spot a four-leaf clover in a field from a remarkable distance away"), Marias has a sharp eye. Nabokov is here, making "the highly improbable assertion that he is 'as American as April in Arizona, '" as is Oscar Wilde, who, in debt on his deathbed, ordered up champagne, "remarking cheerfully, 'I am dying beyond my means.'" Faulkner, we find, when fired from his post office job, explained that he was not prepared "to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had two cents to buy a stamp." Affection glows in the pages of Written Lives, evidence, as Marias remarks, that "although I have enjoyed writing all my books, this was the one with which I had the most fun."

Tomás 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?

"It all happened because of Elvis Presley." Elvis, down south of the border to film a movie, has insisted his producers hire a proper Spaniard so that he can pronounce his few lines in Spanish with a Castillian accent. But Ruiberriz has taken on much more than he bargained for. One fatal night, horseplay in a local bar goes too far: a fatuous drunken American insults the local kingpin, and when the thug insists that Ruiberriz translate, Elvis himself adds an even more stinging comment-and who must translate that?

'Your Face Tomorrow is already being compared with Proust and rightly so' Observer 'One of contemporary literature's major works ... you have to open this book' Ali Smith 'I am myself my own fever and pain' Jacques Deza has been told he has a gift: he can see through people; guess just from their faces what will become of them. When he encounters the enigmatic Bertram Tupra at a party, Deza is persuaded to join a mysterious underground group. His task: to observe an assortment of people - politicians, celebrities, seemingly ordinary citizens - and predict their next move. But where will Deza's descent into this twilight world eventually take him? The first part of Javier Marias' masterly trilogy asks how well we truly know and understand those around us. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

A Heart so White is the breathtaking international bestseller and IMPAC Award-winning masterpiece by Javier Marias, 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.

'Unquestionably the most significant Spanish writer of his generation ... Your Face Tomorrow is rich, haunting, intriguing' Observer 'This trilogy must be one of the greatest novels of our age' Antony Beevor 'Fear is the greatest force that exists, as long as you can adapt to it' Jacques Deza has been recruited into an undercover spy network by the inscrutable Bertram Tupra. But when he is forced to witness an act of horrifying brutality in a night-club, he finds himself falling apart, haunted by his own memories of the bloodshed of the Spanish Civil War. As Deza tries to disentangle himself from an increasingly disturbing world, the second volume in Javier Marias' magnificent trilogy explores violence, corruption and what we are capable of. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

'Your Face Tomorrow is already being compared with Proust and rightly so' Observer 'One of contemporary literature's major works ... you have to open this book' Ali Smith The concluding part in Javier Marias' spy trilogy masterwork Jacques Deza is back in London and once again working for the secret intelligence agency run by Bertram Tupra. Deza finds himself forced to watch Tupra's collection of incriminating videotapes of important public figures. The recordings document unconventional private lives - and horrific acts. The scenes enter him like a poison, contaminating everything good, yet he is powerless to counteract them. Set against a background of brutality, Poison, Shadow and Farewell asks whether violence can ever be justified and completes the extraordinary journey that has led us on a descent into hell and a re-emergence, not entirely unscathed, into life.

All Souls is a compelling black comedy of Oxford life by Javier Marias, 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.

'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 Tomas 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. Tomas, 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. Tomas 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, Marias examines the urge to change our destiny, and the hopeless exile we bring upon ourselves.

"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; unable to bear the shadows and the unknowing, Victor plunges into dark waters. And Javier Marias, Europe's master of secrets, of what lies reveal and truth may conceal, is on sure ground in this profound, quirky, and marvelous novel.

An essential companion for every traveller to Venice, this is the hidden city revealed in a gorgeous non-fiction account by one of Europe's greatest living writers, Javier Marias Century after century, the essence of Venice is unchanging. It is a place of contradictions, equal parts glamour and chaos. As a young man, Javier Marias made the city his home; since then he has left and returned many times, drawn back to its labyrinth of blind alleys, its pearly green canals, its imagined spaces. His love affair with the city has lasted over thirty years - he has traced every inch of its endless interior, has lived among the Venetians and lived apart from them. In Venice, An Interior, Marias sets out to uncover the heart of this strange and enchanting place.

THE FINAL NOVEL FROM THE GREATEST SPANISH WRITER OF HIS GENERATION, JAVIER MARIAS 'The most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature' Boston Globe Spain in the 1990s is beset by a simmering campaign of terror from Basque separatists ETA, with periodic atrocities shattering an illusory calm. Against this backdrop, retired British Secret Service member Tomas Nevinson - now living a quiet life in his hometown Madrid - is approached by his sinister former handler, Bertram Tupra, with an offer to bring him back in from the cold, for one last assignment: a favour for Tupra, for old times' sake, which is also a favour for a powerful Spanish friend. His mission: to go back undercover, in a small Spanish town, to find out which of three women who moved there a decade ago is in fact an ETA terrorist, on loan from the IRA, now on the run and living there incognito. Everything about the assignment is shadowy - from who exactly Nevinson will be working for to the question of what 'justice' he may need to mete out if he is somehow able to unmask one of the three women. But, still in his forties and lured by the appeal of once again being on the inside, he accepts the job. As he gets closer to the three women, his task becomes ever harder. How - or who - to choose between these three? Intimately involved with each of them, as lover, colleague or friend, he can find no firm clue to resolve the question. But under increasing pressure from his paymasters, choose - and act - he apparently must . . . Charting a world where right and wrong, and good and evil, are irreparably blurred, Javier Marias takes us on a journey of rare and unforgettable suspense in this, the final novel written before his untimely passing in 2022. PRAISE FOR JAVIER MARIAS: 'Unquestionably the most significant Spanish writer of his generation' Observer '[Marias] 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 'One of the greatest contemporary novelists' Le Monde 'A great writer' Salman Rushdie

Award-winning author Javier Marias weaves a darkly thrilling tale of love, betrayal and lives played out in the unhappy shadow of history As a young man, Juan de Vere takes a job that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Hi employer is Eduardo Muriel: a famous film director, sophisticated and discreet. Muriel's wife Beatriz is a soft, ripe woman who slips through her husband's home like an unwanted ghost, finding solace in other beds. And on the periphery of their lives stands Dr Jorge Van Vechten, a old family friend with a shadowy past. Juan enters eagerly into Muriel's world of glamour and prestige, but as time passes he is troubled by many questions that seem to have no answer. Why does Muriel hate Beatriz? How did Beatriz meet Van Vechten? And what happened in the chaotic years after the war? As Juan learns more about his employers, his own innocence begins to fall away. Though he starts off as a mere observer, he is soon unable to stand on the side lines, compelled to interfere ever more dangerously in the dark interior of other people's lives. Marias presents a study of the infinitely permeable boundaries between private and public selves, between observer and participant, between the deceptions we suffer from others and those we enact upon ourselves. 'No one else, anywhere, is writing quite like this' Daily Telegraph on The Infatuations

In this story of Oxford life, an affair unfolds between a young Spanish academic and a married flighty, English woman. In the coming together of these two very different characters, English academia, at work and at play, is portrayed.

The Man of Feeling is a story of love and memory by Javier Marias, 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.

Your Face Tomorrow, Javier Marias's dazzling unfolding magnum opus, is a novel in three parts, which began with Volume One: Fever and Spear. Described as a "brilliant dark novel" (Scotland on Sunday), the book now takes a wild swerve in its new volume. Skillfully constructed around a central perplexing and mesmerizing scene in a nightclub, Volume Two: Dance and Dream again features Jacques Deza. In Volume One he was hired by MI6 as a person of extraordinarily sophisticated powers of perception. In Volume Two Deza discovers the dark side of his new employer when Tupra, his spy-master boss, brings out a sword and uses it in a way that appalls Deza: You can't just go around hurting and killing people like that. Why not? asks Tupra. Searching meditations on favors and jealousy, knowledge and the deep human desire not to know, violence and death play against memories of the Spanish Civil War as Deza's world becomes increasingly murky.

'She was bored and fought against her boredom, which only bored her still more.' Five sparkling, irreverent brief portraits of famous literary figures (including libertines, eccentrics and rogues) from Spain's greatest living writer. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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 fabricando experiencias intensas para una vejez que preve solitaria; el ya retirado y sagaz profesor Toby Rylands; el merodeador Alan Marriott, con su perro de tres patas; y muchos otros, hasta llegar al enigmatico escritor John Gawsworth. Lleno de encuentros de amor y amistad, "Todas las almas "ofrece al lector un mundo excentrico y entretenido, comico e inquietante, magistralmente narrado, contra el trasfondo de una bella y enigmatica ciudad.

Dark Back of Time is a compelling story of the way in which reality blurs into fiction by Javier Marias, 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 Marias 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 Marias 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