
Historical novels set during the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was a conflict that took place between 1936 and 1939. This armed conflict deeply divided the country's society, and had a lasting impact on both the psychology and behavior of its people. The conflict was mainly between two political blocs: the Republican government and the rebel military led by Francisco Franco.
As any Spaniard knows, this war was won by Franco, who became dictator of the Iberian country until his death in 1975. Following this terrible event, Journalists and writers have taken on the task of creating some of the most moving literary works in history.. Therefore, today we will talk about titles such as Soldiers of Salamis o The Jarama.
Best novels set in the Spanish Civil War
The sleeping voice, by Dulce Chacon (2002)
It is a historical fiction that takes place between the years 1939 and 1963, and follows the story of a group of women who are imprisoned during the Civil War. In between, it tells of the resilience and support that can emerge in such a brutal context. The work is structured in three parts. In the first, the author presents the characters, as well as the different settings where the plot takes place and the situation of each of the protagonists.
In the second part, the sentence of a woman named Hortensia is carried out, who would live until the birth of her daughter. During the first two parts, a few months pass, while in the third, eighteen years pass. As the chapters progress, it is possible to see the outcome of each of the characters, such as Jaime and Pepita's departure to Córdoba.
Quotes of The sleeping voice
- "And she will continue to listen to her companions in silence, feeling that a black, hairy spider is weaving its sticky web over her, and fearing that her niece is at home scratching a bite."
- «Despair is a way of denying the truth, when accepting it means accepting unbearable pain. And the body refuses, it rebels. The feeling roars. (…) Despair rebels against the possibility of consolation.»
Blind Sunflowers, by Alberto Mendez (2004)
The book addresses the postwar period through four stories with a common thread: First defeat: 1939 o If the heart thought it would stop beating, Second defeat: 1940 o Manuscript found in oblivion, Third defeat: 1941 o The language of the dead y Fourth defeat: 1942 o Blind Sunflowers. Each story features a protagonist caught in the tragedy. Among them are:
A captain of the Francoist army who, in an act of conscience, decides to surrender on the very day of victory. A young republican poet who dies of hunger in prison. A prisoner who finds a glimmer of hope before his execution, and, finally, a child and his mother, who hide a terrible secret in post-war Spain. This last story, which gives its name to the book, It shows the desperate struggle of a family to hide a persecuted Republican father.
Quotes of Blind Sunflowers
- «I am still alive, but when you receive this letter I will have already been shot. I have tried to go mad, but I have not succeeded. I give up living with all this sadness. I have discovered that the language I have dreamed of to invent a kinder world is, in reality, the language of the dead. Always remember me and try to be happy. Your brother Juan loves you.»
- "I only know how to write and tell stories. No one taught me how to speak when I was alone or how to protect life from death. I write because I don't want to remember how to pray or how to curse."
The Jarama, by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (1956)
In very broad terms, the novel revolves around eleven young people from Madrid who are about to spend a hot summer Sunday in the countryside, in front of the river that gives the book its name. The protagonists go down to bathe in its waters and thus decimate the boredom that the city produces in them., as well as the conflict looming in the streets and people's growing fear.
At the same time, two opposing worlds can be seen, where the rural class and the working class confront each other. There are two central scenarios: Puente Viveros and Venta de Mauricio. In this context, events take place over about sixteen hours, ending in tragedy.
Quotes of The Jarama
- «Pride is something you have to know how to have. If you have little, bad; you are overwhelmed and made a scapegoat. If, on the other hand, you have a lot, worse; then you are the one who takes the blow. What you have to have is poise, in this life, so as not to be the laughing stock of anyone or to break your head in your own arrogance.»
- "We are taught that certain things are bad and that is why we abhor them and feel disgusted by them; but we could have been taught in another way."
Soldiers of Salamis, by Javier Cercas (2001)
It is a novel that mixes history, journalism and fiction in order to explore the memory of the Spanish Civil War. The plot follows a journalist, Javier Cercas, who discovers a forgotten episode of the conflict: the story of Rafael Sánchez Mazas, a writer and founder of the Falange, who escaped execution thanks to the mysterious compassion of a Republican soldier.
Intrigued by this fact, The narrator begins an investigation that leads him to reconstruct Sánchez Mazas's past., interviewing witnesses and reflecting on the nature of heroism, cowardice and survival. In the process, he meets Miralles, an old exiled Republican soldier, who may have been the unknown person who spared the Falangist's life.
Quotes of Soldiers of Salamis
- "Nationalism is an ideology," he explained, his voice hardening slightly, as if he were bothered by having to clarify the obvious. "A disastrous one, in my opinion. The independence movement is only a possibility. As it is a belief, and beliefs cannot be discussed, nationalism cannot be discussed; the independence movement can."
- "—Don't apologize, young man. You've done nothing wrong. Besides, at your age you should have learned that men don't apologize: they do what they do and say what they say, and then they put up with it."
Pascual Duarte's family, by Camilo José Cela (1942)
Included in the list of the 100 best Spanish novels of the XNUMXth century by the newspaper El MundoThis epistolary work was responsible for inaugurating the genre known as "tremendismo", which embraces several tropes, such as the social novel of the 1930s, the naturalism of the 19th century and the picaresque, all belonging to the Spanish realist tradition.
Pascual Duarte moves in a deterministic world full of misfortunes: Social subjugation, poverty, pain and decadence. The protagonist goes on to narrate his life from the general to the particular, while describing in detail his surroundings and the situations that led him to the present moment. In the same way, the Kantian ideology of terrifying sublimity is addressed.
Quotes of The Pascual Duarte family
- «One kills without thinking, I have proven it well; sometimes, without wanting to. One hates, one hates intensely, ferociously, and one opens the knife, and with it wide open one reaches, barefoot, to the bed where the enemy sleeps.»
- "We all mortals have the same skin at birth and yet, as we grow, destiny delights in changing us as if we were made of wax and in destining us along different paths to the same end: death."
The peninsula of empty houses, by David Uclés (2024)
This is a novel that addresses the Spanish Civil War through a narrative that fuses magical realism and local customs. The work focuses on the Ardolento family, residents of Jándula, a fictional town that represents Quesada in Jaén. Throughout the plot, the decomposition of the core, the dehumanization of its community and the disintegration of a peninsula full of empty houses are explored.
Similarly, The book delves deeply into several very particular characters: "A soldier who self-harms to release the ash accumulated inside him, a poet who sews the shadow of a girl after a bombing, a teacher who teaches his students to pretend to be dead, a general who sleeps next to the severed hand of a saint, and a blind boy who regains his sight during a blackout."
They are joined by: "A peasant woman who paints all the trees in her orchard black, a foreign photographer who steps on a mine near Brunete and remains motionless for forty years, a resident of Guernica who drives to Paris in a van with the smoking remains of an air raid, and a wounded dog whose blood stains the last stripe of a flag abandoned in Badajoz.
Quotes of The peninsula of empty houses
- "Thus, without further ado, death in war was spoken of. It was a state that could come upon one more easily than hunger and faster than sleep."
- «A religious man splinters a cross. An atheist anoints himself with holy water. A boss raises his fist. A worker extends his palm. They all sew up their children's limbs.»