Writers of the Spanish Civil War: The Testimony of their Auto/Biographies (Critical Perspectives on English and American Literature, Communication and Culture)

This book brings together new essays on six of the most important British and American writers who lived in or visited Spain in the 20th century and whose work bears the impact of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of its outbreak, the new angle on the relations between these authors and Spain is the examination of the mutual bond and its fruits from the point of view of life-writing. The six writers – five British and one American – are presented in chronological order of their birth: Gerald Brenan, Robert Graves, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Stephen Spender and Laurie Lee. Their autobiographies, or what they wrote about their lives in or in relation to Spain, are contrasted with the often multiple biographies that were written on them.

Celia M. Wallhead taught Spanish at Auckland University, New Zealand, and is currently a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Granada, Spain. She is the author or editor of books and articles on contemporary writers such as A. S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon. She has drawn the contributors from colleagues and friends at the University of Granada’s Department of English and German centred upon the research group «Studies in Narrative in English».