When I was Mortal

Javier Marías

New Directions Publishing, 2000 - Fiction - 162 pages

A dozen stories by Javier Marías, "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.

Contents

• The Italian Legacy: 13
• Unfinished Figures: 35
• Everything Bad Comes Back: 57
• Fewer Scruples: 79
• Spear Blood: 93
• In Uncertain Time: 143
• No More Loves: 157

About the author

Javier Marías 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 practiced translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University. Margaret Jull Costa has translated into the English more than 35 books, including Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago's "All the Names" & "The Tale of the Unknown Island", Antonio Perez Reverte's "The Flander's Panel", Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet" & Luisa Valenzuela's "Bedside Manners". She lives in London.

Bibliographic information

• Title: When I was Mortal; New Directions book
• Author: Javier Marías
• Translated by: Margaret Jull Costa
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing, 2000
• ISBN: 0811214311, 9780811214315
• Length: 162 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Short Stories (single author)