Javier Calvo (writer)

His first short-story compilation, Risas enlatadas (Laugh Tracks, 2001), shows stylistic elements that differ extremely from those of contemporary Spanish narrative: sampling or movie snippets, manipulated quotes of other texts, compressed plots from other novels and an "open" conception of narration, taken from Free Cinema and the montage techniques of filmmakers such as Jean Eustache or John Cassavetes.

Una belleza rusa is a free version of the Vladimir Nabokov story A Russian Beauty, where he uses characters and elements from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Mundo Maravilloso (Wonderful World, 2007), more than six-hundred pages long, is a comical thriller set in contemporary Barcelona.

The main character, Lucas Giraut, is an antique dealer with emotional problems who gets involved in the world of crime in order to become the person that he believes his father wanted him to be.

Among his literary influences are Jane Austen, E. M. Forster, Aleister Crowley, Pamela Lyndon Travers, B. S. Johnson, Juan Benet, Joan Perucho, J. G. Ballard, Iain Sinclair, Roberto Bolaño and Rodrigo Fresán.