Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me

Javier Marías · 1951–2022 · Spain

Originally Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí (Spanish) · translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Why it matters

A man's date turns to horror when the woman dies suddenly in his arms, leaving him with her secrets and a husband he cannot approach. Marías's hypnotic, digressive sentences turn a single crisis into a meditation on knowledge and guilt.

At a glance

Marías's signature recursive, clause-stacked sentences stretch a single event over hundreds of pages.