The Spanish writer Javier Marias has died. Journalist, essayist and translator, candidate for the Nobel Prize, he was born in Madrid on September 20, 1951. He died of complications due to bilateral pneumonia that kept him in a coma for more than a month: according to sources close to the family. ÄBC. Then came the confirmation of the Spanish Minister of Culture Miquel Iceta: “Rest in peace – he wrote on Twitter -. His work will keep it alive in our memory ».
On August 14, the writer’s family had released a brief note through the Penguin Random House, the Communications department of the Marías publishing group, in which they had nurtured hopes for a possible recovery of the author. But the severity of Javier’s lung condition has increased in recent weeks, to the point of becoming insurmountable. And not to let him escape.
Translated all over the world, Marias was the winner of the most important literary prizes, including the Impac International Literature Prize, the Nelly Sachs, the Bottari Lattes Grinzane International Prize and in 2011 the Nonino Prize. Among his books “Berta Isla”, “Los enamoramientos” and “Así empieza lo malo”. His most recent book was “Tomás Nevinson”, published this year by Einaudi: in the novel, Berta Isla is co-star of the previous book.
Son of the Spanish philosopher Julian Marias and the teacher and translator Dolores Franco, he spent part of his childhood in the United States, where his father taught. Javier graduated in English Literature, then worked as a translator and, between 1983 and 1985, taught Spanish Literature in Great Britain, at Oxford, and in the United States, at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
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