The modern novelist, columnist, and translator Javier Marías, who has won numerous international literary awards and was widely considered Spain’s greatest contemporary author, has died aged 70.
Javier Marías was a perpetual candidate for the Nobel prize for literature and elected member of the Real Academia Española in 2006. His novels, most of them tauntingly funny, touching, and tragic at once, recount tales of mystery, betrayal, secrecy, spy craft, and obsession. He wrote beautifully about old age, and the moral weight of the past. Marías passed last Sunday, the 11th of September, in Madrid at the age of 70. His publisher Alfaguara announced his death, citing pneumonia as the cause.
His work has been translated into 44 languages. It includes 16 novels, 3 books of short stories, and multiple collections of newspaper articles. Marías has sold nearly 9 million copies worldwide in total. Examples of his most famous pieces are A Heart So White (Corazón tan blanco, 1992) and The Infatuations (Los enamoramientos, 2011). The former was his first huge international success, not only bringing him prizes such as the 1997 Dublin IMPAC award, but also allowing him to commit to his writing full-time.
Marías’ writing is long and winding, comparable to that of Henry James. A sentence often stretches across more than a page. Still, the reader feels guided to the end safely, never once feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of words. We plunge into his plots through a shocking opening. A love triangle maybe, a sudden death or inexplicable suicide, often guided by translators, interpreters, or spies as main characters.
Born in the Chamberí district of Madrid, Marías was the youngest of five sons. Alongside his writing, he taught Spanish literature and translation theory at Oxford University and Complutense University in Madrid until 1992. In 2000, Marías set up a publishing imprint dubbed Reino de Redonda, through which he helped translate neglected works of literature.
From his first novel, The Domains of the Wolf (Los dominios del lobo, 1971) written at age 17, to his last, Tomás Nevinson, which will be published in English next year, Marías never failed to touch and inspire his readers through his expressive style. He continued with his weekly column in El País until last month.
Javier Marías is survived by three of his brothers – Fernando, Miguel, and Álvaro – and Carme López Mercader, his long-term partner, whom he married in 2018.
Words by Joanna Fragoulis
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