In the narrative form that made him famous—the "novel without fiction"—Javier Cercas, in his new book Il folle di Dio alla fine del mondo (Guanda), seeks an answer to a question no one can ignore. In these pages, he merges his deepest obsessions with one of contemporary society’s fundamental concerns: the role of spirituality and transcendence in human life, which inevitably intersects with religion and the desire for immortality. Join us at GO with the author and Dom Bernardo Gianni to discuss it together.

The Book:

Here is a madman without God chasing the madman of God to the ends of the earth.

With this striking opening, a unique book begins—one that no one has ever had the opportunity to write before. The "madman without God" is an atheist and anti-clerical writer who calls himself a militant secularist, driven by the desire to speak face-to-face with Pope Francis, the "madman of God," as the saint who inspired his name also described himself. But beyond its uniqueness—because never before had the Vatican opened its doors so generously to a writer—this book is profoundly insightful. It is a masterful and personal account from a great author, almost a thriller about the oldest mystery in human history. Is there really life after death?

The Author:

Javier Cercas (b. 1962) is a Spanish writer, a regular contributor to the Catalan edition of El País and its Saturday supplement, as well as a professor of Spanish literature at the University of Girona since 1989.

He achieved success with Soldiers of Salamis (Guanda, 2002); The Motive (Guanda, 2004); The Speed of Light (Guanda, 2006); The Woman in the Portrait (Guanda, 2008); The Anatomy of a Moment (Guanda, 2010); The Tenant(Guanda, 2011); The Truth of Agamemnon (Guanda, 2012); Outlaws (Guanda, 2013); The Impostor (Guanda, 2015, winner of the 2016 European Book Prize); The Blind Spot (Guanda, 2016); Terra Alta (Guanda, 2020); and Independence (2021).

In 2016, he won the IX edition of the FriulAdria Prize "History in a Novel" for "boldly exploring the boundaries between reality and fiction, restoring in his novels both the coherence and symmetry of history, as well as the dramatic force and symbolic potential that we demand from literature." Among his many accolades are the Premio Nacional de Narrativa (2010), the Turin International Book Fair Prize (2011), and the Mondello International Prize (2011).

In 2019, he was awarded the Premio Sicilia, previously given to Isabel Allende and Luis Sepúlveda—an honor recognizing the most significant voices of our time for their outstanding personal, civic, and artistic contributions. In 2022, he received the Premio Fulvia, a prestigious award dedicated to the female character from A Private Matter, the novel Beppe Fenoglio wrote in 1963.