Fitzcarraldo Editions publisher Jacques Testard has acquired two books by leading Spanish writer Javier Cercas, including his latest book, God’s Fool at the Ends of the Earth, about the author’s travels to Mongolia with Pope Francis. The book will appear in spring 2028 in Anne McLean’s translation, with Diana Miller at Knopf publishing in North America.
Testard bought UK & Commonwealth rights exc. Canada, with exclusivity in Europe, to God’s Fool at the Ends of the Earth and backlist title Anatomy of a Moment, from Maribel Luque at Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells. Anatomy of a Moment will appear in Anne McLean’s translation, with a new afterword by the author, in August 2026, forty-five years after the failed Spanish coup the book describes.
In God’s Fool at the Ends of the Earth, Javier Cercas, an atheist and anticlerical intellectual, flies to Mongolia with Pope Francis on a Vatican press trip, preparing to question him about the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life. His plan, while on board this plane, is to ask the Vicar of Christ on earth whether his mother will meet his father again in the afterlife, and report his answer back to her. This is the unexpected origin of a one-of-a-kind book, not least because the Vatican has never given a writer this kind of access before. In God’s Fool at the Ends of the Earth, Javier Cercas manages to turn an unusual premise into a masterful and very personal project: a thriller about the greatest mystery in human history. In this extraordinary work of non-fiction, Cercas interweaves his personal obsessions with some of the fundamental issues facing contemporary society: the role of spirituality and mysticism, religion and the quest for immortality in human life.
Anatomy of a Moment, first published in Spain in 2009, was recently named one of the most important Spanish books of the last fifty years in El País, and describes the failed coup d’état of 23 February 1981. As Spain emerged from Franco’s dictatorship and prepared for its first democratic vote for a new prime minister, Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into parliament and began shooting. Only three men refused to take cover: Adolfo Suárez, the outgoing prime minister who had guided Spain towards democracy; General Gutiérrez Mellado, a career army officer turned conservative politician; and Santiago Carrillo, the head of the Communist Party, which had just been legalized. In Anatomy of a Moment, Javier Cercas turns this extraordinary real event – the only coup ever captured live on film – into a groundbreaking documentary novel on a defining moment in Spanish collective memory. Relating historical facts with a novelist’s flair, at once political chronicle and moral inquiry, Javier Cercas, one of Spain’s most celebrated writers, deconstructs the tense hours when democracy hung in the balance. The book has just been adapted into an acclaimed TV miniseries by Movistar, Anatomía de un instante, with international distribution forthcoming in 2026.
Javier Cercas was born in Spain in 1962. He is a novelist and columnist and he has received numerous international awards. His books include Soldiers of Salamis (which has sold more than a million copies worldwide), Anatomy of a Moment and The Impostor. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in Barcelona.
Anne McLean studied history in London, Ontario, and literary translation in London, England, and now lives in Toronto, where she translates Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs and other writings by authors including Julio Cortázar, Javier Cercas, Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Héctor Abad.
Publisher Jacques Testard said: ‘As a long-time fan of Javier Cercas’s writing – I was gifted Soldados de Salamina by a Catalan friend at university fifteen years ago, and have followed his career ever since – I am absolutely delighted to be welcoming him to Fitzcarraldo Editions. He is without a doubt a major European writer and a pioneer of the documentary or non-fiction novel, and I’m excited to be working with him and his exceptional long-time translator Anne McLean to bring his work to new readers in English.’