Andrés Ibáñez was born in Madrid in 1961. A mother trained in the USSR and a father in love with England mark definitively the look of his interests: arts and letters, but especially classical music and English literature. He studied music with the idea of dedicating himself to composition until, in an existential crisis, he left the Conservatory and began to play jazz. He studies Hispanic Philology at the Autonomous University of Madrid and, while, plays jazz at the clubs in the city. After a trip to India, which deeply marks him, in 1989 he moves to live in New York, where he will write several plays that premiere at the Off Off Broadway circuit. There he finishes his first novel, The music of the world, published in 1995 by Seix Barral, and that would make him worthy of the Critical Eye of Narrative Award of RNE. This work was hailed by critics as one of the great revelations of the novel of his generation. After his return to Spain, Ibáñez publishes the novel The World in the Era of Varick (Siruela, 1999), set in New York and in the parallel world of Demonia, particular homage of its author to Ada or the ardor, by Nabokov. The publication, in 2005, of La sombra del pájaro lira (Seix Barral), confirmed its status as a key piece in the new Spanish narrative, and made it a cult author among a new generation of readers. His works have been translated with great success into French, German and Dutch. The perfume of cardamom, volume of Chinese stories, was distinguished with the NH Award of unpublished Stories in the year 2003. Here it is presented in its full version. In his role as a critic, he was awarded the Bartolomé March Prize for his review of the novel Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon. He has collaborated on the Babelia supplement (El País), and is currently a regular critic of the ABCD of Arts and Letters, where he publishes weekly his column «Comunicaciones de la tortuga celeste».
