The Speed of Light

The Speed of Light

by Javier Cercas (Author), Anne McLean (Translator)

Synopsis

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?

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 06 Aug 2007

ISBN 10: 0747585911
ISBN 13: 9780747585916
Book Overview: From the bestselling author of Soldiers of Salamis which has sold over 20,000 copies in paperback in the UK, and is an international bestseller Soldiers of Salamis was winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2005 The Speed of Light has been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007 Shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2008
Prizes: Shortlisted for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2008.

Media Reviews
'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 'Engrossing ... it has verve and flair' Time Out
Author Bio
Javier Cercas was born in 1962. He is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist, whose books include Soldiers of Salamis, which was a huge international success selling nearly 1 million copies worldwide, being translated into twenty languages and winning Cercas and Anne McLean the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction. Anne McLean has translated Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs and other writings by writers including Carmen Martin Gaite, Orlando Gonzalez Esteva, Julio Cortazar and Tomas Eloy Martinez. Her translation of Soldiers of Salamis also won her the 2004 Valle Inclan Prize.