Javier Cercas

In February 1981, as Spain emerged from Franco’s dictatorship and prepared for its first democratic vote for a new prime minister, Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into parliament and began firing shots. Only three men refused to take cover: Adolfo Suárez, the outgoing prime minister who had guided Spain out of authoritarianism; General Gutiérrez Mellado, a conservative general loyal to democracy; and Santiago Carrillo, the head of the Communist Party, which had just been legalized. In Anatomy of a Moment, Javier Cercas turns this extraordinary real event – the only coup ever captured live on film – into a groundbreaking documentary novel on a defining moment in Spanish collective memory. Combining the facts of history with the novelist's flair, at once political chronicle and moral inquiry, Javier Cercas, one of Spain's most celebrated writers, deconstructs the tense hours when democracy hung in the balance.

Years have passed since Melchor Marín took revenge for his mother's murder and a last found peace.He left the police force to work as a librarian, and lives with his daughter Cosette, now a teenager. But their contentment is shattered when Cosette discovers that he kept the truth of her mother's death from her - the fact that she was killed by to scare him off an investigation.Confused and disgusted, Cosette takes a holiday in Mallorca, and that is the last Melchor hears of her; his messages and calls go unanswered, and he has no choice but to travel to the island in search of her. Suddenly it seems the worst aspects of Melchor's past are repeating themselves, and as he grapples with that horror, he experiences the best and the worst that humans are capable of. For while we live surrounded by violence, lies, cowardice, there are also people capable of risking everything for a just cause. And Melchor is one of them.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanPRAISE FOR EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT - WINNER OF THE CWA DAGGER FOR CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION"A gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year" M W Craven"A wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories" A N Wilson, Tablet "Promises to be an excellent series" Guardian

He aqu una fascinante novela sin ficci n saturada de ficci n; la ficci n no la pone el autor: la pone Enric Marco. Qui n es Enric Marco? Un nonagenario barcelon s que se hizo pasar por superviviente de los campos nazis y que fue desenmascarado en mayo de 2005, despu s de presidir durante tres a os la asociaci n espa ola de los supervivientes, pronunciar centenares de conferencias, conceder decenas de entrevistas, recibir importantes distinciones y conmover en alg n caso hasta las l grimas a los parlamentarios espa oles reunidos para rendir homenaje por vez primera a los republicanos deportados por el III Reich. El caso dio la vuelta al mundo y convirti a Marco en el gran impostor y el gran maldito. Ahora, casi una d cada m s tarde, Javier Cercas asedia, en este thriller hipn tico que es tambi n un banquete con muchos platos -narraci n, cr nica, ensayo, biograf a y autobiograf a-, el enigma del personaje, su verdad y sus falsedades y, a trav s de esa indagaci n que recorre casi un siglo de historia de Espa a, bucea con una pasi n de kamikaze y una honestidad desgarradora en lo m s profundo de nosotros mismos: en nuestra infinita capacidad de autoenga o, en nuestro conformismo y nuestras mentiras, en nuestra sed insaciable de afecto, en nuestras necesidades contrapuestas de ficci n y de realidad, en las zonas m s dolorosas de nuestro pasado reciente. El resultado es un libro que no habla de Enric Marco sino de usted, lector; tambi n el libro m s insumiso y radical de Javier Cercas: un libro asombroso que, con una audacia in dita, ensancha los l mites del g nero novelesco y explora las ltimas fronteras de nuestra humanidad. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION This is a fascinating, non-fiction novel, saturated with fiction; the fiction isn't created by the author, but by Enric Marco. Who is Enric Marco? A 90-year-old man from Barcelona who posed as a Nazi concentration camp survivor and who was exposed in May of 2005 after presiding for three years over the Spanish association for survivors, speaking at hundreds of conferences, granting dozens of interviews, receiving important honors, and even moving Spanish congressmen to tears for the first gathering to pay homage to the Republicans deported by the Third Reich. The case threw the world for a loop and labeled Marco as a great imposter. Now, nearly a decade later, Javier Cercas beseiges the enigma that is the man, his truths and lies, and, through the investigation that traverses nearly a century of Spanish history, delves with a kamikaze's passion and heartbreaking honesty into the deepest part of ourselves: into our infinite ability to self-deceive, our need for conformity and our lies, our insatiable thirst for affection, our opposing needs for fiction and reality, and into the most painful zones of our recent past.

V poslednie mesjatsy grazhdanskoj vojny v Ispanii respublikanskie vojska otstupajut k frantsuzskoj granitse. V chisle plennykh, prigovorennykh k rasstrelu, okazyvaetsja Rafael Sanches Masas - osnovatel i ideolog Falangi, odin iz vinovnikov etogo bratoubijstvennogo konflikta. Sanches Masas chudom izbegaet smerti: bezymjannyj respublikanets reshaet poschadit ego. Istoriju spasenija Masasa pytaetsja vosstanovit molodoj zhurnalist, namerennyj razobratsja v zagadochnykh sudbakh ee uchastnikov. No neozhidannoe otkrytie menjaet khod ego poiskov: podlinnyj smysl rasskaza oborachivaetsja tem, chego menshe vsego zhdesh. "Soldaty Salamina" - roman o vojne, miloserdii i poiske pravdy, svjazyvajuschij istoricheskie sobytija i glubokie razmyshlenija o chelovecheskoj prirode. Perevodchik: Sinitsyna Darja

Nueva edici n de Soldados de Salamina, novela imprescindible del siglo XXI, revisada a fondo por el autor y rematada por un esclarecedor ep logo escrito por l mismo. A finales de enero de 1939, apenas dos meses antes del final de la guerra civil, un grupo de prisioneros franquistas es fusilado cerca la frontera francesa por soldados republicanos que huyen hacia el exilio. Entre esos prisioneros se halla Rafael S nchez Mazas, fundador e ide logo de la Falange, poeta y futuro ministro de Franco, quien consigue milagrosamente escapar y ocultarse en el bosque mientras los republicanos lo persiguen; hasta que un soldado lo descubre, lo enca ona y, mir ndolo a los ojos, le perdona la vida. Sesenta a os m s tarde, un novelista fracasado descubre por azar este enterrado episodio b lico y, fascinado por l, emprende una investigaci n para aclarar sus circunstancias y desentra ar su significado. Qui n era de verdad Rafael S nchez Mazas? Cu l fue su verdadera peripecia de guerra? Qui n fue el soldado que le dej escapar? Y por qu lo hizo? Qu secreto escond a su mirada? Novela revolucionaria y deslumbrante, Soldados de Salamina cosech un extraordinario xito de cr tica y p blico y catapult la carrera de uno de los novelistas m s prestigiosos de la actual narrativa espa ola. Desde entonces no ha dejado de leerse en todo el mundo con creciente admiraci n y catorce a os m s tarde sigue siendo, como afirm Mario Vargas Llosa, «una de las grandes novelas de nuestro tiempo . ENGLISH DESCRIPTION INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - A novel of the Spanish Civil War, a modern classic, and a searing exploration of the unknowability of history, by the acclaimed author of Outlaws. One of Spain's best-selling book -an award-winning, wholly original and absorbing work of fiction by a modern master, at whose heart lies an investigation into the nature of historical truth. In the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, an unknown militiaman discovered a Nationalist prisoner who had fled a firing squad and taken refuge in the forest. But instead of killing him, the soldier simply turned and walked away. The prisoner, Rafael S nchez Mazas--writer, fascist, and founder of the Spanish Falange--went on to become a national hero and ultimately a minister in Franco's first government. The soldier disappeared into history. Sixty years later, Javier Cercas--or at least, a character who shares his name--sifts through the evidence to establish what really happened that day. Who was the soldier? Why didn't he shoot? And who was the true hero in the story? Every answer yields another question in this powerful and elegantly constructed novel about truth, memory, and war.

El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo es el libro de un escritor en plenitud, que logra convertir una propuesta muy peculiar en un libro magistral. «El gran novelista espa ol . -Garth Risk Hallberg, The New York Times «El incontestable jefe de filas de su generaci n de escritores hispanohablantes ...]. Uno de los escritores m s importantes de nuestro tiempo . -Olivier Mony, Sud-Ouest «Soy ateo. Soy anticlerical. Soy un laicista militante, un racionalista contumaz, un imp o riguroso. Pero aqu me tienen, volando en direcci n a Mongolia con el anciano vicario de Cristo en la Tierra, dispuesto a interrogarle sobre la resurrecci n de la carne y la vida eterna. Para eso me he embarcado en este avi n: para preguntarle al papa Francisco si mi madre ver a mi padre m s all de la muerte, y para llevarle a mi madre su respuesta. He aqu un loco sin Dios persiguiendo al loco de Dios hasta el fin del mundo . Este es el arranque fulgurante de este libro nico, que nadie hab a tenido la oportunidad de escribir, entre otras razones porque el Vaticano jam s le hab a abierto de par en par sus puertas a un escritor. Pero, adem s de nico, este es un libro de plenitud, donde su autor logra convertir una propuesta ins lita en un relato propio y magistral: un thriller sobre el mayor misterio de la historia de la Humanidad. Con esta novela sin ficci n, Javier Cercas vuelve a su l nea m s personal, en la que logra enlazar sus obsesiones ntimas con una de las preocupaciones fundamentales de la sociedad actual: el papel en la vida humana de lo espiritual y lo transcendente, el lugar en ella de la religi n y el ansia de inmortalidad. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Javier Cercas is an author at the peak of his talent, turning a singular idea into a masterful piece of writing. "The great Spanish novelist."Garth Risk Hallberg, The New York Times "I'm an atheist. I'm anticlerical. I am militantly secular, a stubborn rationalist, a committed unbeliever. But here I am, flying to Mongolia with the Vicar of Christ on earth, preparing to question him about the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life. This why I'm on board this plane: to ask Pope Francis if my mother will see my father in the afterlife and report his answer back to her. That's how a godless lunatic like me ended up following God's shepherd to the ends of the earth." This is the unexpected origin of a one-of-a-kind book, not least because the Vatican has never given a writer this kind of access before. In El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo, Javier Cercas manages to turn an unusual premise into a masterful and very personal project: a thriller about the greatest mystery in human history. In this non-fiction novel, Cercas interweaves his personal obsessions with some of the fundamental issues facing contemporary society: the role of spirituality and mysticism, religion, and the quest for immortality in human life.

A father's worst nightmare - Melchor Marín's teenage daughter has disappeared.Years have passed since Melchor took revenge for his mother's murder and at last found peace with his daughter Cosette in the sleepy backwater of Terra Alta.But their idyll is shattered when one day Cosette, now seventeen, discovers that her father has been concealing the truth of her mother's death- that she was killed in a hit-and-run "accident" intended to scare Melchor off a case.Angry and betrayed, Cosette disappears to Mallorca with her friend Elisa. And that's the last Melchor hears of her. His texts and calls go unanswered, and when she returns alone, Elisa can only say Cosette needed "space to think". Now the former policeman has no choice but to travel to Port de Pollença, where his daughter was last seen alive, and enter the dark, looking-glass world of Swedish-American billionaire Rafael Mattson.Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanPRAISE FOR EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT - WINNER OF THE CWA DAGGER FOR CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION"A gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year" M W Craven"A wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories" A N Wilson, Tablet "Promises to be an excellent series" Guardian

Den store forfatter Javier Cercas, der vandt Planeta-prisen i 2019 og Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation i 2023 for sin roman Terra Alta, vender tilbage med anden del af krimithrilleren, Uafhængighed – Terra Alta II. Politibetjent Melchor Marín brillerer igen. Denne gang konfronterer han dem, der udøver magt i skyggerne, i efterforskningen af en sag om afpresning af Barcelonas borgmester med en sexvideo. Stadig rystet over, at det aldrig er lykkedes ham at finde sin mors morder, men med sin kompromisløse retfærdighedssans og klippefaste moralske integritet forlader Melchor midlertidigt Terra Alta for at hjælpe med opklaringen af sagen i Barcelona. Det er uklart, om bevæggrunden blot er et ønske om økonomisk vinding, eller der er et bagvedliggende politisk motiv. I forbindelse med opklaringen træder Melchor ind i magtens cirkler, et sted, hvor kynisme, skruppelløse ambitioner og korrupt brutalitet er i højsædet. Denne spændende og brutale roman, der er befolket af et væld af uforglemmelige personer, tegner et ødelæggende portræt af Barcelonas politiske og økonomiske elite, men er frem for alt et rasende opråb mod de velhavende familiers og magthaveres tyranni.

The mayor of Barcelona is being blackmailed.A sex tape from her student days - one she never knew existed. The price: 300,000 euros and her immediate resignation.A political chameleon who swept to power on a populist wave, she has her enemies. Nor can she trust those closest to her. Both her ex-husband and her deputy would profit from her fall.Melchor Marín, living a quiet life in Terra Alta, is tempted back to Barcelona to work the case. But what seemed a simple matter has its roots in far more serious and disturbing crimes.With the mayor on the verge of capitulation, a shock revelation changes everything - not least the course of Melchor's life. At long last, his heart's dark desire is in his grasp. Praise for Even the Darkest Night"A gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year" M W Craven"A wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories" A N Wilson"The first in what promises to be an excellent series" GuardianTranslated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

Verdtarretav mõrv raputab Terra Alta üles rahulikust idüllist: kohaliku suurfirma Graficas Adelli omanikud leitakse tapetult. Juhtumit hakkab uurima noor kirjandushuviline politseinik Melchor Marin, kes saabus Terra Altasse nelja aasta eest Barcelonast, saatjaks hämar minevik, mis on teinud ta politseinike seas legendaarseks. Ta usub, et on selle elu selja taha jätnud, abiellunud väikelinna raamatukoguhoidjaga ja neil on tütar, kelle nimi on Cosette nagu ta lemmikromaani "Hüljatud" peategelase Jean Valjeani tütrel.Lähtudes mõrvajuhtumist, muutub romaan - meeldejäävate tegelastega hoogne jutustus -ühtlasi mõtiskluseks seaduse tähenduse, õigluse võimalikkuse ja kättemaksu legitiimsuse üle, aga ennekõike epopöaks inimesest, kes otsib oma kohta maailmas."Terra Alta" on politseinik Marini elu jälgiva põnevussarja avateos. Sarja keskmes on küsimus, kuidas kaitsta naisi vägivalla eest ja võidelda õigluse nimel, muutumata seejuures ise ebaõiglaseks. Javier Cercas (1962) on eesti lugejale tuttav romaanidega "Salamise sõdurid" (e.k 2015) ja "Piiriseadused" (e.k 2018).

The mayor of Barcelona is being blackmailed.A sex tape from her student days - one she never knew existed. The price: 300,000 euros and her immediate resignation.A political chameleon who swept to power on a populist wave, she has her enemies. Nor can she trust those closest to her. Both her ex-husband and her deputy would profit from her fall.Melchor Marín, living a quiet life in Terra Alta, is tempted back to Barcelona to work the case. But what seemed a simple matter has its roots in far more serious and disturbing crimes.With the mayor on the verge of capitulation, a shock revelation changes everything - not least the course of Melchor's life. At long last, his heart's dark desire is in his grasp. Praise for Even the Darkest Night"A gem of a book, easily the best I've read this year" M W Craven"A wonderful novel. I look forward to many more Melchor stories" A N Wilson"The first in what promises to be an excellent series" GuardianTranslated from the Spanish by Anne McLean

A Terra Alta novel. WINNER OF THE CWA DAGGER FOR CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION

INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER - WINNER OF SPAIN'S BIGGEST LITERARY PRIZE - Barcelona detective Melchor Mar n is sent to the countryside to investigate a horrific double murder. Before long, it becomes clear that nothing about the case is quite as it seems in this "sweeping romantic novel in the form of a police procedural" (Wall Street Journal). The first book in the internationally acclaimed series: Melchor, the son of a prostitute, went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Mis rables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a cop. This new case, in Terra Alta, a remote region of rural Catalonia--the murder of a wealthy local man and his wife--will turn Melchor's life upside down yet again. Even the Darkest Night is a thought-provoking, elegantly constructed thriller about justice, revenge, and, above all, the struggles of a righteous man trying to find his place in a corrupt world.

Vuelve Melchor Mar n para enfrentarse al peor de sus miedos: la desaparici n de su hija. Y para comprobar que un hombre solo no basta para defenderse del abuso de los poderosos.Algunos a os despu s de los hechos narrados en Independencia, Melchor Mar n ha abandonado los mossos d'esquadra y trabaja como bibliotecario en Gandesa, en la Terra Alta. Cosette, su hija, es una adolescente rebelde, que no comprende que su padre le haya ocultado c mo muri su madre, y que decide irse a Mallorca con su mejor amiga a pasar unas cortas vacaciones. Cuando no vuelve ni contesta a las llamadas al m vil, Melchor Mar n, con el instinto de polic a experimentado, sin perder un segundo decide plantarse en la isla para rastrear sus ltimos movimientos. Alguien le habla de la mansi n de un multimillonario en un extremo de la isla, cerca de Pollen a, donde invitan a chicas j venes a participar en fiestas lujosas. Melchor Mar n necesitar ayuda. M s que nunca. Y contar con amigos para una misi n suicida. Se jugar n la vida con l? Servir para algo?