The Speed of Light

Javier Cercas

Sep 2009 · A&C Black

Über dieses E-Book

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'Cercas's writing has echoes of Scott Fitzgerald in the intense, shining clarity of its emotion, and of Faulkner' - Independent

'A deeply affecting novel. A reflection on war, friendship, success and failure ... Cercas's novel carries a powerful warning for the war-hungry modern world' - Scotland on Sunday

'Presents his narrator's foibles in a lucid, supple prose, well-matched to the novel's darker elements' - Financial Times
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A sweeping story of youth and age, war and peace, love, friendship and the quest for meaning

An aspiring young writer from Spain begins work as a teaching assistant on a Midwestern campus and finds himself sharing an office with Rodney Falk, a taciturn Vietnam veteran of strange ways and few friends. But when Rodney suddenly disappears the narrator becomes obsessed with discovering the secrets of his past. Why do people fear Rodney? What traumatic event happened at My Khe during the war? And, when the narrator's life takes a terrible twist, is Rodney the only person in the world who can save him?

Autoren-Profil

Javier Cercas is the author of Soldiers of Salamis (Spain, 2001, Bloomsbury, 2003), The Tenant & The Motive (Spain 2000, 2003, Bloomsbury UK, 2005) El Vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale, 1997) and Relatos Reales (True Tales, 2000). He has taught at the University of Illinois and since 1989 has been a lecturer in Spanish literature at the University of Gerona. Anne McLean has translated Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs and other writings by writers including Carmen Martín Gaite, Orlando Gonzalez, Julio Cortázar and Tomás Eloy Martínez .


Soldiers of Salamis was a huge international success, selling over 1 million copies worldwide, being translated into over 20 languages and winning Cercas and Anne McLean the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction in the UK.