diff --git a/C4/Search.pm b/C4/Search.pm
index 3909e6b99d..d408dcb822 100644
--- a/C4/Search.pm
+++ b/C4/Search.pm
@@ -1012,6 +1012,8 @@ sub searchResults {
             $oldbiblio->{summary} = $summary;
         }
         # add spans to search term in results for search term highlighting
+        # save a native author, for the <a href=search.lq=<!--tmpl_var name="author"-->> link
+        $oldbiblio->{'author_nospan'} = $oldbiblio->{'author'};
         foreach my $term ( keys %$span_terms_hashref ) {
             my $old_term = $term;
             if ( length($term) > 3 ) {
diff --git a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/catalogue/results.tmpl b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/catalogue/results.tmpl
index e52b9a9601..bd567b06d4 100644
--- a/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/catalogue/results.tmpl
+++ b/koha-tmpl/intranet-tmpl/prog/en/modules/catalogue/results.tmpl
@@ -256,7 +256,7 @@
                                 <!-- TMPL_ELSE -->
                                     <p>
                                         <!-- TMPL_IF NAME="author" -->
-                                            <a href="/cgi-bin/koha/catalogue/search.pl?q=au:<!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="author" ESCAPE="URL" -->"><!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="author" --></a>
+                                            <a href="/cgi-bin/koha/catalogue/search.pl?q=au:<!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="author_nospan" ESCAPE="URL" -->"><!-- TMPL_VAR NAME="author" --></a>
                                         <!-- TMPL_ELSE -->
                                             &nbsp;
                                         <!-- /TMPL_IF -->