Javier Marías was the author of 15 novels, a long-running contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and also the ‘monarch’ of the uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda. Although he wrote in Spanish, the translations of his works into almost 50 languages won him readers across the globe.
He published his first novel, Los dominios del lobo, at the age of 19. His final novel, Tomas Nevinson, was published in 2021. In a writing career spanning nearly 50 years, Marías emerged as one of the foremost writers in the Spanish language despite sustained criticism for not being “Spanish” enough and for his unusual use of syntax. The writer died on Sunday following a lung infection. He had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier.
“Life is a very bad novelist. It is chaotic and ludicrous,” Marías had once said about life. These short excerpts from interviews to various publications, this is what the writer had to say about becoming a king, Spanish literature, distractions in the digital age, and more.
From Bomb Magazine:
I wrote my first novel, Los dominios del lobo (The Domains of the Wolf), from a feeling of total irresponsibility. I started writing my own things when I was 12, 13, and I know why I did it – mainly because I had finished all the adventure…
