Marcelo Luján was born in 1973 in the Mataderos neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. In early 2001, for various reasons —all of them voluntary—, he moved to Madrid, where he currently lives. He works as a narrative project coordinator and teaches creative writing workshops.

He has published the short-story collections Flores para Irene, winner of the 2003 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Prize; En algún cielo, winner of the 2006 City of Alcalá Narrative Prize; and El desvío, winner of the 2007 Kutxa City of San Sebastián Prize. In 2020, his fourth short-story collection, La claridad, unanimously won the 6th Ribera del Duero International Short Story Prize.

He has also published two books of poetic prose, Arder en el invierno and Pequeños pies ingleses, as well as the novels La mala espera, winner of the 2009 City of Getafe Crime Novel Prize and second runner-up for the 2005 Clarín Novel Prize; Moravia; and Subsuelo, which won the Dashiell Hammett Prize, the Tenerife Noir Prize and the Novelpol Prize, all in 2016. The latter was adapted for the screen by Fernando Franco in 2025.

Some of his works have been selected for reading-promotion campaigns and translated into French, Italian, Czech and Bulgarian.

Foto: © Isabel Wagemann