When I Was Mortal

A dozen stories by Javier Marías ― “the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature” ( Boston Sunday Globe ) ― commissioned from numerous literary publications around the world. Victims of mistaken identity, sponging relatives, amateur sleuths, eavesdroppers, professional liars, assassins, and failed bodyguards populate the short stories in When I Was Mortal . Plots turn on curious exigencies―a woman about to star in her first porn film; a night doctor who adds new meaning to “specialist”; a ghost whose neglect is greatly resented. “In the space of ten or twenty pages,” as the Nouvel Observateur remarked, “Marías contrives to write a novel.” “The short story fits Marías like a glove,” as Le Point noted, and these stories have been acclaimed as “dazzling” ( The London Times Literary Supplement ); “formidably intelligent” ( The London Review of Books ); and “startling” ( The New York Times Book Review ).