All events are free and open to the public

Javier Cercas ( 1962) is one of the most talented writers of contemporary Spain. Novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and journalist, he is the author of the internationally renowned novel, Soldados de Salamina (2001; Soldiers of Salamis, 2003), which has been translated into more than twenty languages, made into a film and was the recipient of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2004) as well as the Premio de la Crítica de Chile and the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona. He is also the author of the novel, La velocidad de la luz (2005; The Speed of Light, 2006), which was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin literary Award. Among his other works in English are El móvil (1987), El inquilino (1989), (The Tenant and The Motive, 2005), El vientre de la balena (1997), and his fascinating account of the attempted military coup of 1981 in Spain which combines fiction and essay. Anatomía de un instante (2009; The Anatomy of a Moment, 2011). The latter work won the Premio Nacional de Narrativa in Spain in 2010. Javier Cercas has won two prizes for the body of his writing: the International Prize of the Turin Book Fair (2011), and the Prix Ulysse (2012).