Marcelo Luján was born in 1973 in Mataderos, a neighbourhood in the City of Buenos Aires. In early 2001, for a number of reasons —all of them voluntary— he moved to Madrid, where he currently lives. He works as a coordinator of narrative writing projects and literary 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 Ciudad de Alcalá de Narrativa Prize), and El desvío (winner of the 2007 Kutxa Ciudad de San Sebastián Prize). In 2020, his fourth collection of short stories, La claridad, was unanimously awarded the VI International Ribera del Duero Prize. He has also published books of poetic prose, Arder en el invierno and Pequeños pies ingleses, as well as the novels La mala espera (winner of the 2009 Ciudad de Getafe de Novela Negra Prize and recipient of a second honourable mention in the 2005 Clarín Novel Prize), Moravia, and Subsuelo (winner of the Dashiell Hammett Prize, Tenerife Noir Prize, and Novelpol Prize, all in 2016). The latter work was brought to the screen in 2025 by Fernando Franco. Also in 2025, the project for his fourth novel was awarded a Literary Creation grant by Spain’s Ministry of Culture, through the Directorate-General for Books, Comics and Reading.

Part of his work has been selected for reading-promotion campaigns and translated into French, Italian, Czech, and Bulgarian.

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