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Publisher Description
WINNER OF SPAIN'S NATIONAL CRITICS AWARD • From the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Infatuations comes a gripping novel of intrigue and missed chances—at once a spy story and a profound examination of a marriage founded on concealment. • "A masterly premise ... worthy of a Hitchcock adaptation." —The New York Times Book Review
When Berta Isla was a schoolgirl, she decided she would marry Tomás Nevinson—the dashing half-Spanish, half-English boy in her class with an extraordinary gift for languages. But when Tomás returns to Madrid from his studies at Oxford, he is a changed man. Unbeknownst to her, he has been approached by an agent from the British intelligence services, and he has unwittingly set in motion events that will derail forever the life they had planned.
With peerless insight into the most shadowed corners of the human soul, Marías plunges the reader into the growing chasm between Berta and Tomás and the decisions that irreversibly change the course of the couple's fate. Berta Isla is a novel of love and truth, fear and secrecy, buried identities, and the destinies we bring upon ourselves.
When Berta Isla was a schoolgirl, she decided she would marry Tomás Nevinson—the dashing half-Spanish, half-English boy in her class with an extraordinary gift for languages. But when Tomás returns to Madrid from his studies at Oxford, he is a changed man. Unbeknownst to her, he has been approached by an agent from the British intelligence services, and he has unwittingly set in motion events that will derail forever the life they had planned.
With peerless insight into the most shadowed corners of the human soul, Marías plunges the reader into the growing chasm between Berta and Tomás and the decisions that irreversibly change the course of the couple's fate. Berta Isla is a novel of love and truth, fear and secrecy, buried identities, and the destinies we bring upon ourselves.
143 Reviews
3.5

mariaapez
Created 16 days agoShare
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Francesco Enni
Created about 1 month agoShare
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“Berta Isla è l'unico titolo possibile di questa storia: donna sfaccettata, spesso combattuta, credibile nei suoi dubbi e nelle sue debolezze, non ricondotta docilmente nella casella di moglie e madre, è lei a brillare attraverso una spaccatura tra mondi che parlano lingue diversi e dispensano segreti con la leggerezza di chi tesse le trame all'oscuro. A tratti il ritmo si fa lento, proprio come tende a ristagnare il tempo nelle vite di chi aspetta: indiscussa l'abilità descrittiva di Marias, l'arte di indugiare tra i sospesi, soffiando via quel fumo che increspa la copertina.”

Giointhesky
Created 3 months agoShare
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mariana norton
Created 3 months agoShare
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About Javier Marías
JAVIER MARÍAS was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published fifteen novels, including The Infatuations and A Heart So White, as well as three collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into forty-four languages, has sold more than eight and a half million copies worldwide, and has won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina Étranger. He died in 2022.
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
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