Javier Marías, página 5 de 19

Celebramos el vigésimo quinto aniversario de la publicación deCorazón tan blancoproponiendo su lectura junto aMacbeth, obra de la que Javier Marías tomó el título y de cuyo autor, William Shakespeare, se reconoce admirador y deudor: Es su verbo, es su estilo, el que abre brechas por las que otros nos podemos atrever a asomarnos.Mis manos son de tu color, pero me averguenzo de llevar un corazon tan blanco.Lady Macbeth enMacbeth, Acto IILas misteriosas palabras de Lady Macbeth desconciertan a su marido tras cometer el crimen que lo llevara hasta el trono, y revelan a Juan Ranz -protagonista y narrador deCorazon tan blanco- la inocencia y el miedo de quien habla y calla y poco a poco va sabiendo lo que nunca quiso saber.Conmemorando los veinticinco años de la publicacion deCorazon tan blanco, la obra de Javier Marias se yuxtapone a la pieza shakespeariana que la inspiro parcialmente en este estuche tan singular.Frecuento a Shakespeare porque para mi es una fuente de fertilidad, un autor estimulante, lejos de desanimarme, su grandeza y su misterio me invitan a escribir, me espolean, incluso me dan ideas: las que el solo esbozo y dejo de lado, las que se limito a sugerir o a enunciar de pasada y decidio ...

«Somos los que nunca olvidamos.» Espías, secretos y difíciles decisiones morales. Las novelas Berta Isla y Tomás Nevinson reunidas en un estuche exclusivo. Berta Isla «Durante un tiempo no estuvo segura de si su marido era su marido. A veces creía que sí, a veces creía que no, y a veces decidía no creer nada y seguir viviendo su vida con él, o con aquel hombre semejante a él, mayor que él. Pero también ella se había hecho mayor por su cuenta, en su ausencia, era muy joven cuando se casó.» Muy jóvenes se conocieron Berta Isla y Tomás Nevinson en Madrid, y muy pronta fue su determinación de pasar la vida juntos, sin sospechar que los aguardaba una convivencia intermitente y después una desaparición. Tomás, medio español y medio inglés, es un superdotado para las lenguas y los acentos, y eso hace que, durante sus estudios en Oxford, la Corona ponga sus ojos en él. Un día cualquiera, «un día estúpido» que se podría haber ahorrado, condicionará el resto de su existencia, así como la de su mujer. Berta Isla es la envolvente y apasionante historia de una espera y de una evolución, la de su protagonista. También de la fragilidad y la tenacidad de una relación amorosa condenada al secreto y a la ocultación, al fingimiento y a la conjetura, y en última instancia al resentimiento mezclado con la lealtad.

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. They are both very young and quickly decide to spend their lives together - never suspecting that they will grow to be total strangers, both living 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 a series of escalating 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 the life they planned has been lost forever. Darkly gripping, Berta Isla is a story about 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 exiles we bring upon ourselves.

'The most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature' Boston Globe 'Marias has discovered a unique form' Adam Thirlwell, TLS 'No one else, anywhere, is writing quite like this' Daily Telegraph A thrilling new literary offering from the acclaimed author of The Infatuationsand 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 a series of escalating 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.

Las Vidas escritas por Javier Marías aportan un interesante y abundante material gráfico, una galería de retratos desconocidos en gran medida para el p?blico español y pertenecien

'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'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

'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 SmithThe 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 Bernard 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.

"Javier Marias begins Dark Back of Time with the tale of the odd effects of publishing All Souls, his 1989 Oxford novel. All Souls is a book Marias swears to be fiction, but which its "characters" - the real-life professors and bookshop owners who have "recognized themselves" - fiercely maintain to be a roman a clef. They claim certain roles for their own - and for others: the narrator's mistress has been firmly identified as a certain don's wife. Marias marvels as a world that seemed nearly asleep is set into fretful motion by a world that never "existed."" "Yet this backwash of All Souls only begins an odyssey into the nature of identity ("We do not know anyone entirely, not even ourselves") and of time. And it is time which Marias manipulates with the flair of Sterne: he weaves together autobiography (the brother who died as a child; the loss of his mother), a legendary kingdom, strange ghostly literary figures, a one-eyed pilot, a curse in Havana, a bullet lost in Mexico. An ironic puzzle, Dark Back of Time explores the powers of art and reality as well as of memories, which become only more mysterious the more Marias remembers."--BOOK JACKET.

Faszinosum Fußball: Vieles, so Marías, wechselt man heutzutage, den Beruf, die Frau oder den Mann, die Automarke - aber nicht den Fußballverein. Javier Marías begeistert sich für Fußball, und Real Madrid ist sein Verein. Seit vielen Jahren schreibt der renommierte Schriftsteller für verschiedene Zeitungen Glossen und Essays zum Geschehen rund um den Ball. Nicht nur über die kickende Gesellschaft läßt er sich darin aus, vielmehr handeln sie von allem, was die menschliche Seele berührt: von Liebe und Leidenschaft, von Edelmut und Gerechtigkeit, von Neid, Mißgunst und euphorischer Siegeslaune. Der Marías-Leser erfährt hier womöglich mehr über die Leidenschaften des Autors als in jedem seiner Romane. »Selbst wenn man kein tieferes Interesse für Fußball hegt, hat dieses Buch schon fast Offenbarungscharakter. Auch Nichtfußballfreunde verstehen plötzlich, warum das Geschehen auf dem Spielfeld und davor und danach und drum herum solche Gefühle freisetzt.« (Katharina Döbler in der ›Zeit‹) Für die erweiterte Taschenbuchausgabe wurden vier der Texte erstmals ins Deut-sche übersetzt, einer davon erscheint damit überhaupt zum ersten Mal in Buch-form. Illustriert ist der Band mit Fußballsammelbildchen aus dem Privatbesitz des Autors.

Javier Mar-as's prize-winning novel describes the birth and death of a passion. The narrator, a tenor known as 'the Lion of Naples', recalls a moment of his life when, during a series of performances of Verdi's Othello in Madrid, he first encountered Manur, a Flemish banker, a man who he had noticed in a train, who was accompanied by his wife, Natalia, and his secretary, Dato. The emotional ties that link this little group, into the which the narrator proceeds to insinuate himself, form the background to this highly sophisticated, sometimes perverse, comedy of manners..

Publicada en 1971, se trata de la primera novela de Javier Marías, considerada desde su aparición como una señal del nuevo rumbo que se iniciaba en la literatura española. Marías señala un nuevo camino que se nutre de la narrativa anglosajona, de la gran tradicion norteamericana que incluye a sus autores de novela negra. De alli que este libro, se situe en la Norteamerica de los años veinte, esplendorosos y decadentes años -los de Francis Scotte Fitzgerald- en los que tiene lugar la desintegracion de una familia.