Javier Marías Totally Explained

Everything about Javier Mar As totally explained

Javier Marías (born September 20 1951, in Madrid) is a Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist.

Life and work

Javier Marías was born in Madrid. His father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco (the father of the protagonist of Your Face Tomorrow was given a similar biography). His mother died when Javier was 26 years old. Marías's first literary employment consisted in translating Dracula scripts for his maternal uncle, Jesús Franco. He was educated at the Colegio Estudio in Madrid.
   Marías wrote his first novel, Los dominios del lobo (The Dominions of the Wolf), at the age of 17, after running away to Paris. His second novel, Travesía del horizonte (Voyage Along the Horizon), was an adventure story about an expedition to Antarctica. After attending the Complutense University of Madrid, Marías turned his attention to translating English novels into Spanish. His translations include work by John Updike, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, and Robert Louis Stevenson. In 1979 he won the Spanish national award for translation for his version of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Between 1983 and 1985 he lectured in Spanish literature and translation at the University of Oxford.
   In 1986 Marías published El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling), and in 1988 he published Todas las almas (All Souls), which was set at Oxford. The 1992 novel Corazón tan blanco (A Heart So White) was a great commercial and critical success, and for its English translation, by Margaret Jull Costa, Marías won the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
   The protagonists of the novels written since 1986 are all interpreters or translators of one kind or another. Of these protagonists, Marías has written, "They are people who are renouncing their own voices."
   In 2002 Marías published Tu rostro mañana 1. Fiebre y lanza (Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear), the first part of a trilogy which forms his most ambitious literary project. The second volume, Tu rostro mañana 2. Baile y sueño (Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream), was published in 2004. On May 25, 2007, Marías announced the completion of the final instalment, entitled Tu rostro mañana 3. Veneno y sombra y adiós. It was released on September 24, 2007.

Redonda

Marías's novel, Todas las almas (All Souls), included a portrayal of the poet John Gawsworth, who was also the third King of Redonda. Although the fate of this monarchy after the death of Gawsworth is contested, the portrayal by Marías so touched the "reigning" king, Jon Wynne-Tyson, that he abdicated and left the throne to Marías in 1997. This course of events was chronicled in his "false novel," Dark Back of Time. The book was inspired by the reception of Todas las almas by many people who, falsely according to Marías, believed they were the source of the characters in Todas las almas. Since "taking the throne" of Redonda, Marías has begun a publishing imprint named Reino de Redonda ("Kingdom of Redonda").
Marías has conferred titles during his reign, including upon Pedro Almodóvar (Duke of Trémula), António Lobo Antunes (Duke of Cocodrilos), John Ashbery (Duke of Convexo), Pierre Bourdieu (Duke of Desarraigo), William Boyd (Duke of Brazzaville), (Duke of Miranda), A. S. Byatt (Duchess of Morpho Eugenia), Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Duke of Tigres), Pietro Citati (Duke of Remonstranza), Francis Ford Coppola (Duke of Megalópolis), Agustín Díaz Yanes (Duke of Michelín), Roger Dobson (Duke of Bridaespuela), Frank Gehry (Duke of Nervión), Francis Haskell (Duke of Sommariva), Eduardo Mendoza (Duke of Isla Larga), Ian Michael (Duke of Bernal), Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Duke of Corso), (Duke of Parezzo), Sir Peter Russell (Duke of Plazatoro), Fernando Savater (Duke of Caronte), W. G. Sebald (Duke of Vértigo), (Duke of Malmundo), and upon Juan Villoro (Duke of Nochevieja).
In addition, Marías created a literary prize, to be judged by the dukes and duchesses. In addition to prize money, the winner receives a duchy. Winners: 2001 John Maxwell Coetzee (Duke of Deshonra); 2002 John H. Elliott (Duke of Simancas); 2003 Claudio Magris (Duke of Segunda Mano); 2004 Eric Rohmer (Duke of Olalla); 2005 Alice Munro (Duchess of Ontario); 2006 Ray Bradbury (Duke of Diente de León); 2007 George Steiner (Duke of Girona).

Other activities

Marías operates a small publishing house under the name of Reino de Redonda. He also writes a weekly column in El País. An English version of his column "La Zona Fantasma" is included in the monthly magazine The Believer.
Marías was elected to seat R of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) in 2006. At his investiture in 2008 he agreed with Robert Louis Stevenson that the work of novelists is "pretty childish," but also argued that it's impossible to narrate real events, and that “you can only fully tell stories about what has never happened, the invented and imagined.”

Bibliography

Spanish titles

Los dominios del lobo (1971)
Travesía del horizonte (Voyage Along the Horizon, 1972)
El monarca del tiempo (1978)
El siglo (1982)
El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling, 1986)
Todas las almas (All Souls, 1989)
Corazón tan blanco (A Heart So White, 1992)
Vidas escritas (Written Lives, 1992)
Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí (Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me, 1994)
Cuando fui mortal (When I Was Mortal 1996)
Negra espalda del tiempo (Dark Back of Time, 1998)
Tu rostro mañana 1. Fiebre y lanza (Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear, 2002)
Tu rostro mañana 2. Baile y sueño (Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream, 2004)
Tu rostro mañana 3. Veneno y sombra y adiós (2007)

English translations

All Souls (1992)

A Heart So White (1995)

Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me (1996)

When I Was Mortal (1999)

Dark Back of Time (2001)

The Man of Feeling (2003)

Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear (2004)

Voyage Along the Horizon (2006)

Written Lives (2006)

Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream (2006)

Secondary literature

Berg, Karen, Javier Marías's Postmodern Praxis: Humor and Interplay between Reality and Fiction in his Novels and Essays (2008)Further Information

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