The Man who Loved Dogs is a novel by Leonardo Padura and involves the complex political narratives that surround the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramon Mercader. The novel was a finalist for the Book of the Year Award in Spain. It was originally published in 2009 by Tusquets Editors, Spain. It has been translated into English by Anna Kushner. The english translation was published in the U.S. in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Padura’s novel traces the saga of Trotsky’s 11-year flight from Stalin; the recruitment and creation of an assassin in the form of Catalan communist Ramón Mercader; and the marginalization of Iván Cárdenas Maturell, a Cuban novelist who learns early in his career the hazards of writing in his homeland.