The work of a supreme stylist…The two protagonists’ civilized but complex marriages recall the compelling intricacies of Henry James…It is brilliantly done.

James Woodall, The Times

A Heart So White

Fiction by Javier Marías

Translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

With unnerving insistence A Heart So White chronicles the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he considers the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn’t really want to know. Secrecy, its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility permeates the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into shadows––and reckons the costs of ambivalence. (“My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white” – Macbeth.) Called “dazzling” by The London Times Literary Supplement and “a landmark by a genuine artist” by Le Monde, A Heart So White won the Dublin IMPAC Prize and was rated by El País as “his best and most ambitious novel.”

Paperback(published May, 01 2002)

ISBN
9780811215053
Price US
14.95
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
288

Clothbound(published May, 01 2002)

ISBN
9780811214520
Price US
24.95
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
288
Portrait of Javier Marías

Javier Marías

Contemporary Spanish novelist

The work of a supreme stylist…The two protagonists’ civilized but complex marriages recall the compelling intricacies of Henry James…It is brilliantly done.

James Woodall, The Times