Novels about Spain and Spanish history
 

One of my favorite ways to prep for a trip is to read novels that take place in the intended destination. What are your favorite novels that deal with Spanish history (or modernity for that matter?)

Look up Arturo Perez-Reverte. Go from there.

For modern Spanish history, you can try 'The Spanish Holocaust' by Paul Preston, on the Spanish Civil War. Impressive!

'Franco' by Gabrielle Ashford Hodges - "behind the military heroics and dextrous political footwork lay an insecure and vengeful man..."

On a lighter vein, you can read:
'Death And The Sun' by Edward Lewine - "A Matodor's Season in the Heart of Spain" and 'Or I'll Dress You In Mourning" by Larry Collins and Doninique Lapierre - "The story of El Cordobes and the new Spain he stands for".

And let us not forget Kurlansky's 'Basque History of the World". Entertaining and illuminating!

Which part(s) of Spain are you going to? Very different regions with very different history, flavours and litterature.

But the Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela is a good place to start, history and modernity hand in hand (well, that's a trait of almost all things Spanish). Pascal Duartes Family and The Beehive are outstanding, tragic and funny: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_priz.../cela-bio.html
The Beehive: http://toreadornottoreadthisbook.blo...jose-cela.html
The Family of Pascal Duarte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fa...Pascual_Duarte

going to Madrid, Barcelona and Andalucia (we think). great, thanks for the suggestions....

Graham Greene's "Monsignor Quixote" goes to the core of things, somewhat a modern parallel to Cervantes' original. Greene's post-franquist ex-Mayor of El Toboso puts it this way: "How little Spain changes. You would never feel in France that you were in the world of Racine or Molière, nor in London that you were still close to Shakespeare's time. It is only in Spain and Russia that time stands still." Not at all true, but I understand what he talks about.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/2...e-quixote.html

Norman Lewis' fabulous and funny "Voices of the Old Sea" about when tourism started to affect a stoic and tranquile Spanish fishing village in the aftermath of the Civil War: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...s-8647518.html

Gerald Brenans classic "South from Granada": https://www.theguardian.com/books/bo...travel-writing

And Jason Webster's more up to date and very insightful books about Andalucía, the mysterious "duende" in flamenco, the return of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship in recent years public debate and Spanish mountain life: http://www.jasonwebster.net/non-fiction/
I highly recommend "Duende", his debut, exciting as a crime novel, and here Webster really knows the terrain: http://www.jasonwebster.net/duende/

And of course, the ever returning Nobel prize favourite Cees Nooteboom's poetic 26 chapters travel through different Spanish regions and cities on his "Road to Santiago": http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/0...06.6kagan.html

From one of Spain's great writers, Antonio Muñoz Molina, "In the Night of Time."

This novel is set in Madrid during the fall of the Second Spanish Republic, mid 1930's.

Remarkable.

Thin

Not a novel, though it reads like one, Adam Hochschild's <i>Spain in Our Hearts</i>, which follows several Americans and a Brit or two who volunteered to fight or report on the Spanish Civil War. Gripping.

For Barcelona, Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novels could be exactly what you're looking for. I loved The Shadow of the Wind, puts you on track of both old times and today's living Barcelona mysteries: http://www.carlosruizzafon.com/la-so....php?idioma=en

wow this is great - I actually started Ruiz Zafon last night (: looking forward to reading the others as well

question has been asked a number of times in the past:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...t-in-spain.cfm
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...on-fiction.cfm
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ona-novels.cfm

Though not a novel, I would add, Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Silent Past, by Giles Tremlett. An excellent book covering the recent history of Spain and the deep impact of the Spanish Civil War.

Cervantes--Don Quijote and his Exemplary Novels.

You'll see statues of the Don and Sancho Panza everywhere, so you should be familiar with who they are.

Garcia Lorca

Miguel de Unamuno

For a very ornate version of Spanish life-Juan Ramon Jimenez

I like Cela a great deal but please realize that he is a bit dark.

And for a real change read some of the authors of the Golden Age-Calderón de la Barca and Lope de Vega.

The New Spaniards by John Hooper

Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart

Some books of bernard cornwell 'Sharpe' series take place in Spain during napoleonic wars.

"Spain Beyond Spain: Modernity, Literary History, and National Identity"

Try CJ Sansom, "Winter in Madrid"- a spy story set in the dismal aftermath of the civil war (and see if you can spot the metatextual reference to an incidental mention of Spain in a much better-known novel, and indeed TV series from some decades ago).

Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is a follow-up to his Cider With Rosie - he left his village and wandered through Spain supporting himself with his violin, in the year or so before the Civil War.

And is Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls totally out of fashion now?

<And is Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls totally out of fashion now?>

Wow, that hasn't been mentioned. And of course The sun also rises should also be here, Hemningway's famous and rich novel about the San Fermín festival in Pamplona and everything that is important in life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises

In the early 1990's I was in graduate school and one professor assigned books by authors who influenced his writing such as Faulkner and Hemingway. Even then Hemingway seemed to be falling out of favor. We read "For Whom the Bells Toll" and instead of a paper he gave us the option of writing a parody, which I did, "For Whom They Sell Rolls." It was about an American who did not know there was a civil war destroying Spain and goes there and opens a bakery.

Iberia by James A. Michener

>>>Even then Hemingway seemed to be falling out of favor. <<<

The pendulum is swinging back. Did you see the exhibit at the Morgan Library? The manuscripts showed the painstaking revisions he went through. At his best he was an extremely dedicated artist. At his worst . . . well, only the best matters.

Fra

I think modern sensibilities, especially his attitude women, drinking, and his general macho BS, will reduce him to an essential historical reference rather than a literary lion that he once was.
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We read Iberia during one of our extended stays in Spain. Michener made the exciting dull and many of insights in Spain proved to be wrong.

>>>I think modern sensibilities, especially his attitude women, drinking, and his general macho BS, will reduce him to an essential historical reference rather than a literary lion that he once was. <<<

I agree that he had those faults, and they sometimes mar his work. But I also think that a good number of his short stories and at least a couple of his novels will be read for a long time. I believe <i> The Sun Also Rises</i> turned 90 this year. I'm sure you know how rare it is for a novel to thrive for that long.

The worst describes exactly how I see the man. The artist though remains great. Same can be said of other artists. You usually need to be crazy to be a good artist.
It is just that Hemingway is indeed in the macho BS.

Fra---the second part of Don Quijote was published 400 years ago this year. Do you think Hemingway will still be read in 2326?

>>>Do you think Hemingway will still be read in 2326?<<<

Very doubtful, but that is taking an <i>extremely</i> long view! I suspect you couldn't fill a medium bookcase with works over 400 years old still in general circulation. Of course, many more survive, but mainly in the academic world.

This year commemorates the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’ death, who died the same year as Shakespeare, 1616. The second part of Don Quixote de la Mancha was published a year before his death. The first part was published in Dec. 1604.

Unlike Hemingway, who's works were all original, Don Quixote was said to be adopted from an earlier manuscript writen by a Moor, Cide Hamete Benengeli.

http://elpais.com/diario/2005/12/31/...19_850215.html

Robert--

Thanks for the correction on the date. Time is starting to fly by for me.

The text of Don Quijote states repeatedly that the novel was a translation of a work either written by, translated by, or discovered by Cide Hamete Benengeli (I forget which and Cervantes may have said different things at different places), but the very interesting article you link to says that "Hamete" is, in Arabic, loosely the same as "Miguel" and that "Benengeli" literally means the same thing as "Cervantes"--"the son of [the] deer." Therefore, according to the article, Hamete Benengeli is Miguel Cervantes himself!

Fra---the second part of Don Quijote was published 400 years ago this year. Do you think Hemingway will still be read in 2326?
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One of the great ironies of Don Quijote is that he fell out of favor in Spain and it was his popularity in the US that kept it alive.

I will try to find the attribution for that.

muchas gracias this should keep us going for a while (:

You can also put Javier Marias on your list. He is very, very hot right now.

A Heart So White
The Infatuations


Thin