When I Was Mortal
by Javier Marias

When I Was Mortal cover
Cover of When I Was Mortal on the Open Library.

One of two Marías short story collections that I read while on my Spanish literature kick. I’ve never read his novels, but I love his short stories.They have, variously, supernatural, ghosts, crime, and the macabre.

For the moment I’ve classified them as magical realism, though I don’t think he’d consider himself a practitioner of that genre. But it will do, for now.

Translator: Margaret Jull Costa

Read the discussion at Multo.