Translation Rights TQE / The Belly of the Whale

Javier Cercas uses the image of Jonas in El vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale) to reflect periods of confusion and uncertainty suffered by all human beings. This young Catalonia-based writer and professor of literature relates the tragicomic experiences undergone by a series of likeable, somewhat abstracted and insane characters -as anyone in their circumstances would be- in their journey through the belly of the whale.

About Javier Cercas’ previous book of short stories, El móvil (The Motive), one critic for La Vanguardia stated: We discover a skillful narrator, gifted with an undisputable command of narrative techniques and a fresh resourcefulness... Cercas has not lost his wonderful inventiveness; in fact, with El vientre de la ballena he reaffirms himself as a great novelist, once compared to Flaubert, his main influence.

One August afternoon, Tomás bumps into Claudia, an old love from his adolescence. This simple and fortuitous encounter makes his life take an unexpected turn: it provides him with the woman of his life, but he also adopts the lead role in a nightmarish comedy of intrigue. Everything is disrupted: a languishing marriage, his precarious position as assistant professor at the University, his lifelong friends. Nothing is like it used to be. Dragged by such extreme events, Tomás, the reflexive professor, as if inadvertedly seeking his own downfall, desperately pursues a mysterious and ambiguous romance which he senses can only be fatal. Tomás leads us through his bizarre experiences, while, thanks to the cynical distance granted to him by his memory, he extends his painful understanding about inextricable human relationships and the illusion of happiness.

Javier Cercas was born in Ibarhenando, Cáceres in 1962. He is the author of a book of short stories, Cuentos reales (True Tales) 2000, of a nouvelle, El móvil (The motive) 1987 and 2003, and of three novels, El inquilino (The Tenant) 1989 and 2000, El vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale), and Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis). The latter is a novel that reached unprecedented success in bookshops, with readers, writers, and critics. It has received the following prizes: Premi Llibreter 2001 Narrativa, Premi Ciutat de Barcelona, Premio Librería Cálamo al mejor libro del año 2001, Premio Salambó, Premio de la Crítica de Chile, IV Gran Premio Qué Leer de los Lectores, Premio de Novela Histórica de Cartagena, Premio Extremadura a la Creación, Premio de los Lectores Crisol, Premio Grinzane Cavour. Javier Cercas worked for two years at the University of Illinois and, since 1989, is professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona. He collaborates regularly in the newspaper El País.