Literary Festival 2016: Fact versus Fiction? The Spanish Civil War in the Literary Imagination

Podcast: LSE: Public lectures and events
Date: February 24, 2016
Panel: Paul Preston (Historian, Moderator, Speaker A), Helen Graham (Historian, Speaker C), Eduardo Mendoza (Novelist, Speaker B)

Overview of the Episode

This episode, part of the LSE Literary Festival 2016, unpacks the interplay between fact and fiction in cultural representations of the Spanish Civil War. Esteemed historian Paul Preston, novelist Eduardo Mendoza, and historian Helen Graham debate how the war has been reimagined in novels, how fiction can shape or distort collective memory, and what historians and novelists owe to truth and authenticity. Drawing from major works by Spanish and international writers, the panel explores the responsibilities and creative freedoms in narrating historical trauma, the mythologizing of conflict, and the generational transmission of memory.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Spanish Civil War in Literature – Scope and Influence

• Preston highlights the outsized presence of the Spanish Civil War in world literature, noting over 30,000 works of history and potentially over a thousand novels dealing with the war, across genres from spy thrillers (Alan Furst) and detective stories (José Luis Ibáñez) to magical realism and even musicals.
  [00:00]

• The war is often called the "Poets’ War," with famous poems and anthologies by W.H. Auden and the English poets, and has inspired seminal films and adaptations.

• Novels about the war are classified into those who "lived it" and those who "imagined it." Both categories, says Preston, require historical truth and authenticity.
  [03:30]

2. Fiction’s Power and Pitfalls – Truth, Authenticity, and Influence

• On the difference between history and fiction:
  Preston warns that "far more people read fiction than read history, and therefore far more people are likely to be swayed by the errors with which fiction abounds." (06:00)

• George Orwell – While his Homage to Catalonia is authentic as memoir, Preston challenges the accuracy of Orwell's broad conclusions:

  "What Orwell writes about in Homage to Catalonia is...his experiences, which are perfectly valid and authentic and true...But unfortunately, he draws the wildest and most inaccurate conclusions from them." (08:30, A)

• Role of the novelist: Many postwar novelists, even if not directly about the war, carry its shadow in their works. Fictional works—like those by Antonio Soler, Manuel Rivas, or Victoria Hislop—manage to evoke the lived texture of the period in ways that history often cannot.
  [09:40 - 12:00]

• On adaptation and invention: Preston points to problematic myth-making in some fiction, citing Javier Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis, which blends invention and reality, creating confusion for readers.
  [12:42]

3. Case Studies – Hemingway’s Fiction vs. Memoir, Barrera’s Honesty

• Arturo Barea’s La Forja de un Rebelde is cited as "one of the most true books about the Civil War…an honest and a painfully honest book."
  [13:30]

• Ernest Hemingway, by contrast, is critiqued for:

  • "Unnecessary distortions of fact," e.g. describing executions in Ronda that never happened as he wrote.
  • Clunky, inauthentic representations of Spanish speech (the "thee" affectation).
  • Creating phrases that outlived his fiction:

    "But did thee feel the earth move?"
    Preston jokes, "thanks to Hemingway, it now is [a euphemism for orgasm]...gave Carole King the title of her major hit, 'I Feel the Earth Move'."
    (16:50, A)

4. Fact vs. Fiction from the Historian’s Chair: Helen Graham

• Limits and potentials of history writing:
  Graham admits historians are bound to "empirically verifiable quantities," yet the "writing is kind of second fiddle," sometimes leaving the experience "lost in translation" where novels may succeed.
  (17:05, C)

• Use of literary techniques in history:

  "...historians can use literary techniques in what is our supremely difficult task of telling a true story." (18:05, C)

• Novels as myth-busters: Good fiction, like good history, can "vaporize myths" rather than reinforce them, especially vital in the face of resurgent "reductive tellings about the war in Spain...in these fear-ridden days of ascendant populist nationalism."
  (19:30, C)

5. In-Depth: Two Exemplary Spanish Novels

a) Joan Sales, "Uncertain Glory" (Incerta Glòria)

• Set during the war, it is praised as "a virtuoso depiction of the messy, devastating literality of war," offering "narrative drive and...energy" while exposing both external and internal conflicts of characters.
  [22:03 - 26:30, C]

• The novel’s characters must confront the "huge contradictions of the Spanish Civil War" and their own identities, blurring "the false clarities that war violently enforces."

• Offers insight into forgotten subjectivities, such as liberal Catholics opposed to Franco, against the regime’s myth of the "Catholic Crusade."

  "...the contradictions and the divisions aren't just between people, but they're actually within people…and the war...changes them all utterly." (24:40, C)

b) Juan Marsé, "One Day I Will Return" (Un Día Volveré)

• A noir set in postwar Barcelona, dealing with the afterlife of the war and the complexities of memory and justice.

  • "The novel begins and ends with someone quite literally pissing on the past."
  • Memory functions variably "as a prison, as a liberation, and almost everything in between." (30:22, C)

• Marsé exposes the multi-layered relationship with the past:

  "How does one establish a relationship with the past which allows one to forget...yet without negating or betraying past commitments or memories?" (31:10, C)

• The novel achieves both genre excellence as a thriller and deep philosophical exploration, surprising Graham that it has never been translated to English.

6. Eduardo Mendoza on Memory, Writing, and Generational Change

• Mendoza stresses that novelists "don't want to be believed, we want to entertain," but notes "it is very difficult for readers not to believe what they read in a novel..." due to identification.

  "...once the reader has identified with the characters or the action, it's part of their life while history is there to be read and understood." (35:39, B)

• Personal experience of postwar Spain: He describes a childhood shadowed by silence, fear, and non-analytical recollections—"always personal stories of fear and hunger," typically recounted by women, with men staying mostly silent.

  "In my family, this chronicle was not a part of a coherent discourse...never tried to explain what had happened. Never an opinion was expressed, just pieces of personal history." (37:30, B)

• Mendoza illustrates the paradox of the "third Spain," the silent majority not aligned with either warring side:

  "They belonged to the third Spain. Majority of Spaniard men and women who only wanted to be left alone...now they felt guilty, both winners and losers." (39:50, B)

• Motivation for writing: To reconstruct the everyday realities, not focus on grand historical narratives. He found "women's magazines" more revealing than history books, for the details of "how people dressed, what they ate, their tastes, their morals, trending topics of that time." (47:12, B)

On Censorship, Reception, and Changing Memory

• His debut historical novel was dismissed by Francoist censors as "stupid and chaotic rubbish...but permitted to publish as they thought nobody would read it."
  (47:30, B)

• Publication in 1975 coincided with the birth of Spain's democratic transition, positioning his work as symbolic of a new historical openness.

• On generational perspectives:

  • First generation: Direct participants as witnesses (Barea, Sales, Sender, Rodoreda)
  • His generation: Born under the shadow of war, "more timid and more introspect"
  • Newer generation: Free of personal ties, able to revisit the war with a blend of detachment and narrative experimentation (e.g., Javier Cercas, Almudena Grandes)

On Changing Attitudes, Anarchism, and Historical Revision

• Mendoza reflects that his romantic portrayal of anarchists in earlier works was later challenged by hearing real victims’ stories.

  "If I could write those novels again, I would change my position. Or I may nuance. But this will never happen...novels are forever, or at least as long as they are available in bookshops and libraries." (58:15, B)

• He advocates a balanced reckoning with the historical record, warning against forgetting or simplistic reconciliation, but also against perpetuating mythologies that obscure reality.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paul Preston on learnings from fiction:

  "The writings of Manuel Rivas are utterly moving and...they do tell us so much more about the Civil War than any historian that I know, and certainly me, could do." (11:30, A)

• Preston on Hemingway’s poetic license:

  "He falsifies most plausibly the causes and the actual form of violence of my people." (14:25, A, quoting Barea on Hemingway)

• Helen Graham on the historian’s challenge:

  "...the paradox of actual history writing...our supremely difficult task of telling a true story." (18:25, C)

• Eduardo Mendoza on fiction’s seductive truth:

  "Novelists have to be true and truthful. The only point is that we only realize that when it is too late." (36:15, B)
  "I wanted to tell not what happened, but how people lived the events...I wanted it to be a collective psychoanalysis, a protection against the temptation to consider us better than our neighbors." (44:35, B)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–07:55 – Introduction: Spanish Civil War in literature, genres, and key figures
• 09:40–12:42 – The novelist's power, evocation versus fact, examples of contemporary fiction
• 13:30–17:05 – Barrea, Hemingway, authenticity, and problems of representation
• 17:05–35:01 – Helen Graham on history, myth-busting, and deep dives into Sales and Marsé
• 35:17–47:30 – Eduardo Mendoza: novelist’s role, personal/family history, the atmosphere of postwar Spain
• 47:30–58:30 – Censorship under Franco, publication of historical novels, generational shifts in writing, honesty, and evolving understandings of anarchism and the war

Final Thoughts

This panel reflects on the responsibilities and freedoms in narrating the Spanish Civil War, whether as historian or novelist. The participants urge caution against mythologizing, advocate for nuanced memory, and highlight the powerful, sometimes dangerous, influence of fiction on collective historical consciousness. All agree: truth and authenticity remain moving targets—but the attempt to capture the "texture of everyday life" during conflict is central to both historical and literary imagination.