(Sussex Academic Press, 2009)

Arturo Barea (1897-1957) wrote the autobiographical trilogy, The Forging of a Rebel, one of the finest accounts of Spain in the first 40 years of the twentieth century. It covers a city-slum childhood, the 1920s colonial war in Morocco and besieged Madrid in the 1936-39 Civil War. My book is the only full-length biography and criticism of Barea, based on numerous interviews with people who knew him and also analyzing his lesser-known books and 850 talks for BBC radio between 1940 and 1957.