Javier Cercas

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Cercas and the second or maternal family name is Mena.

Javier Cercas Mena (born 1962) is a Spanish writer and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona, Spain. Awards he has won for his novels include the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for Soldiers of Salamis (translated by Anne McLean), and the European Book Prize for The Impostor (translated by Frank Wynne).

Javier Cercas
Cercas in 2019
Born	Javier Cercas Mena (1962-04-06) 6 April 1962 (age 63) Ibahernando, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	University of Girona
Occupation(s)	Professor, writer
Notable work	Soldiers of Salamis; The Speed of Light; The Impostor
Awards	Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; European Book Prize
Seat R of the Real Academia Española
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 November 2024[a]
Preceded by	Javier Marías

Biography

Javier Cercas was born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, Spain.^[1][2] He is a frequent contributor to the Catalan edition of El País and the Sunday supplement. He worked for two years at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Illinois, United States.^[3]

He is part of a group of well-known Spanish novelists who have published "historical memory" fiction, focusing on the Spanish Civil War and Francoist state, including Julio Llamazares, Andrés Trapiello, and Jesús Ferrero.^[4]

Soldiers of Salamis (translated by Anne McLean) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004.^[5] McLean's translations of his novels The Speed of Light and Outlaws were also shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, in 2008 and 2016 respectively.

During the 2014–15 academic year, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature at St Anne's College at Oxford, England.^[6] He was awarded the 2016 European Book Prize for The Impostor.

Bibliography

• 1987, El móvil
• 1989, El inquilino (The Tenant and the Motive) (English translation, 2005)
• 1994, La obra literaria de Gonzalo Suárez
• 1997, El vientre de la ballena
• 1998, Una buena temporada
• 2000, Relatos reales
• 2001, Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2004)
• 2005, La velocidad de la luz (The Speed of Light) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2006)
• 2009, Anatomía de un instante (The Anatomy of a Moment) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2011)
• 2012, Las leyes de la frontera (published as Outlaws) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2014)
• 2014, El Impostor [es] (The Impostor) (English translation by Frank Wynne, 2017)
• 2017, El monarca de las sombras (Lord of All the Dead) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2020)
• 2018, The Blind Spot (MacLehose Press) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2018)
• 2019, Even the Darkest Night (Terra Alta I) (English translation by Anne McLean, 2022)
• 2021, Independencia (Terra Alta II)
• 2022, El castillo de Barbazul (Terra Alta III)
• 2025, El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo

Notes

1. Elected on 13 June 2024