In his prize-winning bestseller Soldiers of Salamis, Cercas considered the devastating effects of the Spanish Civil War on those caught up in it. The Speed of Light offers similar reflections about the Vietnam War. As in the earlier novel, which featured a character named “Javier Cercas”, postmodern games are played with fiction and reality.

Cercas, a lecturer in Spanish literature, taught for two years during the 1980s at the University of Illinois, just like his unnamed narrator. Like the author, this character publishes a novel titled The Tenant, as well as a successful novel about the Spanish Civil War. But these parallels distract from a powerfully imagined tale of guilt and despair, centring on a friendship between the narrator, and the very different Rodney Falk, a fellow-lecturer at the university in Urbana and a Vietnam veteran. The novel charts their relationship over 20 years, as the narrator discovers more about Rodney’s Vietnam experiences, which have made him an outcast from society. Deciding that he must confront Rodney with what he knows, the narrator returns to America after a long absence, only to find that he may be too late . . .

Cercas is a fine writer, and Anne McLean’s translation admirably conveys his lucid style. “A dark, engrossing, satisfying book,” The Bookseller said when the work was first published in English last year and other reviewers were no less complimentary.

THE SPEED OF LIGHT by Javier Cercas, trans Anne McLean

Bloomsbury, £7.99

Buy the book here at the offer price of £7.59 (free p&p)

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