– a novel about the
Spanish Civil War
I asked for contributions on interesting things about history - and
Jenny Twist responded: thank you Jenny....
so, let's go to Spain:
I
retired and moved to Spain eleven years ago and I am ashamed to say that before
I came to live here I knew nothing of Spanish history other than the stuff we
were taught at school. I knew that it was the Spanish Ferdinand and Isabella
who financed Christopher Columbus and so conquered the Americas. I knew about
the Spanish Inquisition and I knew about the Spanish Armada.
But I had no idea, for example, that Spain was under Moorish
rule for hundreds of years and had a rich heritage of Moorish architecture and
culture. I had not realised that the same Ferdinand and Isabella finally drove
the last of the Moors from Spain and instituted a harsh and repressive regime
which kept the Spanish people in feudal
poverty right up to the twentieth century.
And nobody told me about the war.
I was horrified to find out about the dreadful atrocities
committed by both sides during the Spanish Civil War and the appalling cruelty
perpetrated against the Spanish people under Franco's fascist dictatorship –
which lasted from 1939 till his death in 1975. I had actually been to Spain on
holiday while he was still in power!
I didn’t set out initially to write a novel about it.
What happened was I wrote a short story and it grew. But as
it grew I realized I had a lot to say.
The first chapter is essentially the original short story
and tells of an English woman who came to Southern Spain in the early 1950s.
Tourism had barely touched the country at that time and the people were only
just beginning to recover from the deprivations of the war. She arrived in a
remote mountain village and caused some consternation amongst the inhabitants,
who had never met a foreigner before. But Domingo, the goatherd, fell in love
with her. When she introduced herself, he believed she was saying she was an
angel (‘Soy Ángela’ in Spanish can either mean ‘I am Angela’ or ‘I am an
angel’). Hence the title of the story.
I entered the story for a competition and it was
short-listed, which was encouraging, but didn't win. In the meantime, I had
become more and more intrigued by one of the characters, Rosalba, the
shopkeeper, and I found myself writing a sequel and then another, and before
long it came home to me that I what I had here was an embryo novel.
Because it was initially a series of short stories, the
first few chapters, to a large extent, stand as individual stories; and I did,
indeed, publish them as such in a local magazine.
But it wasn't too difficult to go over them later and make
them into a more homogeneous whole. And as I learnt more and more about the
history of my adopted country, I incorporated it into the novel, introducing
past events through the memories of the major characters.
I had huge difficulty researching the history because there
is so little written about it. You can find out a great deal in the way of
historical background from books like 'The
Spanish Civil War' by Anthony Beever, which has a lot of (some might say
rather too much) information about what
went on in the major cities. But there is virtually nothing written about what
went on in the little villages, and the people are very reluctant to talk about it. It was a nightmare for them.
Brother fought against brother, and in Spain the family is everything.
I relied on what I knew about my own friends – the story of
Salva the Baker, for example, who was imprisoned for years for giving bread to
the starving children, is true. I also transposed some of the real events from
the history books to my own imaginary village.
But then, after I had finished the novel, I discovered a
wonderful book by David Baird – ‘Between
Two Fires,' which is the history of his own white village of Frigiliana. It
contains the actual testimony of those who survived. Most of these witnesses
were already old men and women when they told their stories and many of them
had died before the book was published. If I had known about it when I was
writing Domingo's Angel, it would
have saved me months of work. As it was, it proved invaluable to me as a way of
checking that I had got it right.
I wrote to David when my own book was about to be published
and asked whether he would mind me referring to him in my acknowledgements. He
was, as I expected, very approachable and courteous. I hope a lot of people
read his book. It is unique.
Some of the events in this story are bloodthirsty and
shocking, but there is a lot of love in it too. I hope that I succeeded in
portraying for my readers the cheerfulness, humour and exuberance of the Andalusian
people. And it would be nice to think that it might do something to dispel some
of the ignorance about this fascinating period of Spanish history.
If you would like to know a little bit
more about Domingo's Angel, here is
the blurb:
DOMINGO’S ANGEL
When Angela turns up in a remote Spanish mountain village,
she is so tall and so thin and so pale that everyone thinks she is a ghost or a
fairy or the dreadful mantequero that
comes in the night and sucks the fat from your bones.
But Domingo knows better. “Soy Angela,” she said to him when they met – “I am an angel.” Only later did he realise that she was telling him
her name and by then it was too late and everyone knew her as Domingo’s Angel.
This is the story of their love affair.
But it is also the story of the people of the tiny mountain village – the
indomitable Rosalba - shopkeeper, doctor, midwife and wise woman, who makes it
her business to know everything that goes on in the village; Guillermo, the
mayor, whose delusions of grandeur are rooted in his impoverished childhood;
and Salva the Baker, who risked his life and liberty to give bread to the
starving children.
The events in this story are based on
the real experiences of the people of the White Villages in Southern Spain and
their struggle to keep their communities alive through the years of war and the
oppression of Franco’s rule.
ISBN:
978-1-61235-202-2
EXCERPT
The next day he took his goats to the
top of the ridge near the pass and looked down on the smallest casita of
Guillermo the mayor. There was a mule tethered outside and a string of washing
had been hung between two almond trees. Otherwise there was no sign of life.
Halfway down the slope was a large algarrobo tree. He decided it would be an
ideal place for lunch.
But although he sat
and watched the little house all the time as he ate his bread and cheese and
olives and drank his wine, nobody came out and nothing happened. Only the mule
moved along the side of the house to keep in the shade as the sun moved round.
So he went to sleep.
When he woke up,
someone was calling him. “Hola, goatherd!”
He squinted up into
the sun and there, standing before him was an angel. It was very tall and thin
and there was a fiery halo round its head. “Hello,” it said, "Soy Ángela - I am angel. I am delighted
to meet you! Who are you?”
In absolute panic,
Domingo shot up into a sitting position and shuffled backwards into the
algarrobo tree. His head hit the hard trunk with a resounding crack and he
subsided and slumped back down, feeling a little stunned.
The angel came
forward into the shadow of the algarrobo tree and he realised that the halo
was, in fact, hair - very long hair - falling in waves down beyond her
shoulders and almost to her waist. It was exactly the colour of oranges that
have dried on the tree. Her skin was so white it was almost blue and her eyes
were so pale they had no colour at all. “How could they think she was a dead
person?” he thought in a confused fashion. “She is obviously an angel.”
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Thank you Jenny - that was interesting
(Domingo's Angel is duly downloaded to my Kindle - added to the To Be Read pile!)
If anyone else would like to contribute something that is history based - or interesting to talk about....
email Helen
