Dark Back of Time

Dark Back of Time
Author(s)	Javier Marías
Translator	Ester Allen
Cover artist	Semadar Megged
Country	Spain
Language	Spanish
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	New Directions
Publication date	1998
Published in English	2004
Media type	Print (Paperback)
ISBN	0-8112-1570-9
OCLC Number	57534731

Dark Back of Time by Javier Marías was first published in 1998. Ester Allen’s English translation was published by New Directions in 2001.

Summary

Called by its author a "false novel," Dark Back of Time begins with the tale of the odd effects of publishing All Souls, is witty and sardonic 1989 Oxford novel. All Souls is a book Marías swears to be fiction, but which its "characters"- the real-life dons and professors and bookshop owners who have "recognized themselves'- fiercely maintain to be a roman a clef. With the sleepy world of Oxford set into fretful motion by a world that never "existed," Marías further stirs things up by weaving together autobiography (the brother who died as a child; the loss of his mother), a legendary kingdom, strange ghostly literary figures, maps and photographs, halls of mirrors, a one-eyed pilot, a bullet lost in Mexico, and a curse in Havana.

Reception

Dark Back of Time has been acclaimed here as "superb" (Review of Contemporary Fiction), "fantastically original" (Talk), "brilliant" (Virginia Quarterly Review), and "a rare gift" The New York Times Book Review: "In the best manner of Borges," The Hudson Review commented, this hybrid is "lush and mysterious." Javier Marías, translated into thirty-four languages, has sold over four million copies of his books worldwide, and won a dazzling array of awards.

External links

• "Stranger Than Fiction," by Wendy Lesser, New York Times, May 6, 2001.
• "Getting a grip on the past," by Martin Beagles, Times Literary Supplement, April 18, 2003.
• "Dark Back of Time" at Complete Review. Includes links to many reviews.