[2][1] He is a founding Knight of the Order of Finnegans, a group which meets in Dublin every year on 16 June to honour James Joyce and his novel Ulysses.

In 1970 he directed two short films, Todos los jóvenes tristes (All the sad youngsters) and Fin de verano (The end of summer).

Other books containing literary essays include Para acabar entendamos nada (2003, Chile), El viento ligero en Parma (2004, Mexico; re-published in Spain, 2008), and And Pasavento ya no estaba (2008, Argentina).

In 2007 he won the Elsa Morante literary prize in the category Scrittori del Mondo, which each year honours a great foreign writer.

In 2011 he received the Bottari Lattes Grinzane Prize (Italy) the Prix Jean Carriere (France) and the Leteo Award (Spain) for Dublinesque.

In 2012 he received the Argital Award Bilbao City for Air of Dylan and the Premio Gregor von Rezzori for the Italian translation of Exploradores del abismo (Esploratori dell’abisso).

This is a long day that culminates, at dusk, at the Martello tower in Sandycove (where the novel begins) with participants reading sections from Ulysses and then walking to Finnegan's pub in the neighbouring village of Dalkey.

His work has so far been translated into thirty languages, including French, English, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Greek, Serbian, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish, Norwegian, Romanian, Polish, Korean, Catalan, Slovenian, Czech, Bulgarian, Finnish, Danish, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Mandarin, Portuguese and Croatian.