Dark Back of Time

'We lose everything because everything remains except us', says the mysterious narrator of this extraordinary novel, which meditates on the transience, chance and fragility of life, and the way in which reality blurs into fiction. As a man called Javier Marías recalls the strange events and people that shaped his past, including ghostly literary figures, a pilot, an adventurer, a brother who died as a child and the king of an island in the Caribbean, we begin to question the nature of time, memory and reality itself. Here the writer is both a keeper of memories and a purveyor of illusions, destined to be lost in the dark back of time. Translated by Esther Allen 'I was enthralled by his strange mix of made-up memories, lost experiences and real-life fantasies.' Marina Warner, Guardian 'Shows sensitivity in exploring an entire shadowland of human experience just beyond the reach of words, and could be said to be a culminating point in the author's career.' The Times Literary Supplement