The Tenant and The Motive

A Note on the Author and Translator

Javier Cercas was born in 1962. He is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist, whose books include El vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale, 1997) and Relatos reales (True Tales, 2000). In the 1980s he taught for two years at the University of Illinois, and since 1989 has been a lecturer in Spanish Literature at the University of Gerona. He writes a regular column for El Pais. His novel Soldiers of Salamis 2001) was published to acclaim in Spain, has been made into a film by David Trueba, has been published in twenty languages so far and sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. It was translated into English by Anne McLean and published by Bloomsbury in 2003. Author and translator were awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2004 for Soldiers of Salamis.

Anne McLean has translated Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs and other writings by authors including Carmen Martín Gaite, Ignacio Padilla and Orlando González Esteva. She is currently working on books by Tomás Eloy Martínez and Julio Cortázar. She was awarded the Premio Valle Inclan for Literary Translation 2004 for her translation of Soldiers of Salamis.