In February 1981, just as Spain was finally leaving Francos' dictatorship and during the first democratic vote in parliament for a new prime minister - Colonel Tejero and a band of right-wing soldiers burst into the Spanish parliament and began firing shots. Only three members of Congress defied the incursion and did not dive for cover,: Adolfo Suarez the then outgoing prime minister, who had steered the country away from the Franco era, Guttierez Mellado, a conservative general who had loyally served democracy, and Santiago Carillo, the head of the Communist Party, which had just been legalised. In The Anatomy of a Moment, Cercas examines a key moment in Spanish history, just as he did so successfully in his Spanish Civil War novel, Soldiers of Salamis. This is the only coup ever to have been caught on film as it was happening, which, as Cercas says, 'guaranteed both its reality and its unreality'. Every February a few seconds of the video are shown again and Spaniards congratulate themselves for standing up for democracy, but Cercas says that things were very quiet that afternoon and evening while all over Spain people stayed inside waiting for the coup to be defeated ...or to triumph.'Cercas writes brilliantly, in simple, direct language and beautifully, uncontrivedly modulated sentences. His prose is a pleasure - easy without dumbing down' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

'A brilliant reconfiguring of a key event in contemporary European history. Audacious and wholly fascinating' William Boyd 'Javier Cercas' gripping account of the attempted Spanish coup in February 1981 uniquely combines a novelist's thrilling narrative skills with an historian's forensic rigour' Frederick Taylor, author of Exorcising Hitler and Dresden 'Javier Cercas has employed the forensic skill of an investigative journalist and his natural talent for historical narrative to capture a defining moment in a nation's transition from dictatorship to democracy. With this, his latest venture into his country's turbulent history, Cercas can rightly lay claim to being one of Spain's most talented, profound as well as clear literary voices' Jimmy Burns, author of Papa Spy and Barca