A dozen stories by Javier Marías —"the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (Boston Sunday Globe). Victims of mistaken identity, sponging relatives, amateur sleuths, eavesdroppers, professional liars, assassins, and failed bodyguards populate the short stories in When I Was Mortal. Plots turn on curious exigencies—a woman about to star in her first porn film; a night doctor who adds new meaning to "specialist"; a ghost whose neglect is greatly resented. "In the space of ten or twenty pages," as the Nouvel Observateur remarked, "Marías contrives to write a novel." "The short story fits Marías like a glove," as Le Point noted, and these stories have been acclaimed as "dazzling" (The London Times Literary Supplement); "formidably intelligent" (The London Review of Books); and "startling" (The New York Times Book Review).

Victims of mistaken identity, sponging relatives, amateur sleuths, eavesdroppers, professional liars, assassins, and failed bodyguards populate the short stories in When I Was Mortal. Plots turn on curious exigencies — a woman about to star in her first porn film; a night doctor who adds new meaning to "specialist"; a ghost whose neglect is greatly resented.

Javier Marías—"the most talented Spanish author alive" (Il Messagero)—while a literary phenomenon worldwide, is still in the process of being discovered in America. Born in 1951 in Madrid, he has published two dozen books. Translated into twenty-nine languages and awarded every prize, his books have sold more than three and a half million copies.