Javier Montes (Madrid, 1976) won the Premio José María de Pereda with his first novel, Los penúltimos. He then published his second novel, Segunda parte, both with Pre-Textos. Along with Andrés Barba, he won the Anagrama Essay Prize for La ceremonia del porno. In 2010, Granta included him in their selection of “Best Young Spanish-Language Authors.” He has also collaborated with El País, Granta, Artforum, and The Literary Hub, and his work has been recognized by the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Leonardo Scholarship by the Fundación BBVA, and by an invitation as a writer to the MALBA residency in Buenos Aires. At Anagrama, he has also published La vida de hotel [Hotel Life] and Varados en Río [Stranded in Rio]: “Marvelous…a great exercise in the slippery art of cinema” (Michael Ondaatje); “Enviable naturalness. The reader enjoys taking their time on each page and is compelled by the desire to know the conclusion” (J.A. Masoliver Ródenas, La Vanguardia); “A convincing invention that eloquently about the breach that separates our actions from the stories we tell ourselves” (Ollie Brock, Times Literary Supplement); “Beautiful and revealing” (Inés Martín Rodrigo, ABC).