Memoirs of a Spanish Civil War Artist


Book Description

The political poster explosion of July 1936 has been highly acclaimed by critics and scholars worldwide. One of the best-known posters of the time, "Freedom!" – which has acquired near cult status – shows a peasant holding a sickle aloft, set against the anarchist red-and-black flag. The artist, Carles Fontserè, was just twenty years old when he joined the revolution along with fellow artists and comrades-in-arms, Josep Alumà, Helios Gómez, Antoni Clavé and many others who appear in this account. In his outstanding memoirs, which are more artistic, political and collective than intimate, Fontserè recounts his upbringing in a petit bourgeois family with Carlist leanings along with his experience in the Barcelona Requeté. His thirst for reading led him to the writings of Tolstoy, which inspired his nascent libertarian ideals culminating in his road-to-Damascus transformation during the heady events of the Nationalist military uprising in Barcelona. Fontserè played a key role in the founding of the Professional Drawing Union in 1936 and went on to draw posters for the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), among other political parties. He served with the International Brigades and, paradoxically, survived several close brushes with death from his own side. His story culminates with the Republican retreat from Barcelona and his escape over the Pyrenees, together with Catalan president Lluís Companys and his cabinet, into exile in France. Fontserè's Memoirs of a Spanish Civil War Artist masterfully combines autobiography and history through the eyes of one of the 20th century's foremost Catalan graphic artists, known worldwide for his Republican propaganda posters. The book of Carles Fontserè's memoirs is not only an excellent translation from Catalan to English, but one central to the history of Catalonia.




Never More Alive


Book Description

Kate Mangan was a graduate of Slade Art School and sometime model and danseuse in Paris, much admired by Augustus John. She went out to Spain in 1936 in search of her lover, Jan Kurzke, a German refugee who had joined the International Brigade to fight in defence of the Spanish Republic. She ended up working for the Republic's Press & Censorship office, travelling around Spain, visiting the battlefront and meeting a host of characters including W.H. Auden, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and many others. When Jan was seriously injured she visited him in hospital, helped him across the border into France and left him with friends in Paris so she could return to her job in Valencia. This is her previously unpublished memoir, with a Preface by Paul Preston and an Afterword by her daughter, Charlotte Kurzke.




Homage to Catalonia


Book Description

Step into the heart of revolutionary Spain with George Orwell's powerful account, Homage to Catalonia. In this poignant narrative, Orwell recounts his firsthand experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War, offering a vivid and deeply personal perspective on the political and social upheaval of the time. Orwell’s writing brings to life the intense struggles, challenges, and betrayals he witnessed as he joined the militia in Catalonia. With sharp clarity, he paints a stark picture of the ideological divides that tore the country apart, and the complexities of war that blurred the lines between friend and foe.But here's the twist that will captivate you: What does Orwell’s experience reveal about the nature of truth, power, and the human spirit during times of war? Can we learn from the past to avoid repeating its mistakes? This extraordinary memoir offers a rare look into the realities of war, filled with unflinching honesty and a deep sense of humanism. Through Orwell’s eyes, the reader gains an intimate understanding of the personal costs of conflict and the difficult choices soldiers had to make. Are you ready to witness the raw, unfiltered truths of war as seen through the eyes of one of history's most influential writers?Dare to immerse yourself in the brutal honesty of Homage to Catalonia and experience a unique chapter of history that continues to resonate today. Purchase it now, and begin your journey through Orwell’s compelling narrative of war, ideology, and survival.




Mosaic Fictions


Book Description

Mosaic Fictions reveals the tensions between national and global affiliations in Spanish Civil War literature, highlighting writers such as Leonard Cohen, Dorothy Livesay, and Mordecai Richler.




The Good Comrade


Book Description

Jan Kurzke was a left-wing artist who fled Nazi Germany in the early 1930s and tramped round the south of Spain, witnessing first-hand the poverty of the rural population. He eventually found his way to London. When the Spanish civil war broke out in 1936, he went back and joined the International Brigade, to defend the democratically elected Republic. Many of his fellow volunteers died in the savage battles on the outskirts of Madrid and Jan himself was seriously wounded at Boadilla, nearly losing his leg. He was dragged off the battlefield by the poet John Cornford, who was killed a few weeks later. For several months, Jan was shunted between various military hospitals in Spain, eventually making his way across the border into France. This is his previously unpublished memoir.




Memory and Amnesia


Book Description

Using a rich variety of sources, this book explores how the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War influenced the transition to democracy in Spain after Franco's death in 1975.




The Spanish Civil War in Literature, Film, and Art


Book Description

This bibliography is the first attempt to establish a comprehensive list of secondary material relating to the Spanish Civil War in literature, film, and art. It includes books, articles, and chapters in a wide range of languages, including Spanish, English, Russian, French, German, and Italian. Monteath begins the work with an introductory essay surveying the breadth of the scholarship on the cultural manifestations of the war, which he places in its broader cultural-historical context. The bibliography is organized alphabetically within sections devoted to literature, film, and art, and a general subject index completes the work. Anyone interested in the fiction of Hemingway, the film of Ivens, the art of Picasso, and many of the key figures in Western culture of the 1930s will find this work of value.




Catalonia Reborn


Book Description

2017 saw Catalonia come under the world's spotlight as it again fought for independence and the preservation and protection of its unique Catalan culture. Answering the questions and complications behind the fight for Catalonian Independence, Catalonia Reborn is a detailed guide to the region's political, historical and cultural issues. For the layman as well as the expert, it takes the reader through the rich history of Catalonia – its language, culture and political background – to the present day, covering defining eras of the region from Franco's dictatorship to the 2017 independence referendum and elections.




In Place of Splendour: The Autobiography of a Spanish Woman


Book Description

Constancia de la Mora was the granddaughter of Antonio Maura, who had served under Alfonso XIII as Prime Minister of Spain. She was one of the first women to obtain a divorce under the new laws passed by the fledgling Spanish Republic, and quickly remarried. Her new husband was appointed commander of the Republican air force when the fascist rebellion broke out in 1936, while Constancia became a key figure in the Republic's International Press Office. This is her autobiography, first published in 1940.




A Moment of War


Book Description

A memoir of the Spanish Civil War with “the plainness of Orwell but the metaphorical soaring of a poem . . . An extraordinary book” (The New York Times Book Review). In December 1937 I crossed the Pyrenees from France—two days on foot through the snow. I don’t know why I chose December; it was just one of a number of idiocies I committed at the time. Such was Laurie Lee’s entry into the Spanish Civil War. Six months after the Nationalist uprising forced him to leave the country he had grown to love, he returned to offer his life for the Republican cause. It seemed as simple as knocking on a farmhouse door in the middle of the night and declaring himself ready to fight. It would not be the last time he was almost executed for being a spy. In that bitter winter in a divided Spain, Lee’s youthful idealism came face to face with the reality of war. The International Brigade he sought to join was not a gallant fighting force, but a collection of misfits without proper leadership or purpose. Boredom and bad food and false alarms were as much a part of the experience of war as actual battle. And when the decisive moment finally came—the moment of him or the enemy—it left Lee feeling the very opposite of heroic. The final volume in Laurie Lee’s acclaimed autobiographical trilogy—preceded by Cider with Rosie and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning—is a clear-eyed and vital snapshot of a young man, and a proud nation, at a historic crossroads.