the Spanish civil war
The fresh hell of Dorothy Parker’s Hollywood
Though well paid as a screenwriter, Parker lampooned Hollywood’s moguls, dubbing MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Merde as she slipped further into alcoholism
George Orwell’s unacknowledged debt to his wife Eileen
Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s creative influence on her husband George Orwell has been ignored for far too long, says Marina Benjamin
Pablo Picasso in love and war
As Europe descended into chaos, the middle-aged Picasso remained as bullish as ever, says Craig Raine
What does ‘Guernica’ really symbolise?
It takes a bold author to open his book about ‘Guernica’ with a quotation from the Spanish artist Antonio Saura…
The enigma of Enric Marco
Enric Marco has had a remarkable life. A prominent Catalan union activist, a brave resistance fighter in the Spanish Civil…
Javier Marías's Thus Bad Begins: A touch of Vertigo in post-Franco Madrid
The title comes from Hamlet but the spirit that hovers over the pages of Javier Marías’s new novel is —…
Stalin's Spanish bezzie
During the Spanish civil war the single greatest atrocity perpetrated by the Republicans was known as ‘Paracuellos’. This was the…
The gentle intoxications of Laurie Lee
On Laurie Lee’s centenary, Jeremy Treglown wonders how the writer’s legacy stands up
