Julian Mash recommends a gripping new study of the Spanish Civil War

ALMOST eighty years have passed since the Spanish Civil War and yet it continues to fascinate each new generation. The stories of the writers, artists, photographers and adventure hungry young men and women who travelled to the country to join the struggle against General Franco’s rebellion have been well told in the intervening decades. So it was with some scepticism that I approached Amana Vaill’s new book on the subject ‘Hotel Florida: Truth Love and Death in the Spanish Civil War’ – do we really need another book about such a well-documented subject? Ten pages in and any such concerns were long forgotten as I became engrossed in the fascinating narrative.

Vaill has focuses on the lives of three couples navigating their way through the conflict. We find Ernest Hemmingway at a crossroads in his writing career, as his marriage falls apart, heading to Spain with his new lover, the ambitious young journalist Martha Gellhorn. Fresh faced photographers Robert Capa and his partner Gera Taro travel in and out of the conflict from their base in Paris, taking incredible photos and pioneering a new style of photo-journalism. Finally we meet Arturo Barea head of the Republican foreign press office falling in love with his deputy Isla Kulscar, who have their absolute loyalty to the cause tested in the fraught atmosphere of war.

Vaill maps out their intertwining lives with great dexterity as they meet at the Hotel Florida a grand old place located on Madrid’s chic Gran Via that became a key meeting place for foreign journalists and writers as the war raged around them. Vaill has unearthed new letters and diaries to give us a well-rounded picture of both the personal lives of those involved set against the wider backdrop of the changing fortunes of the Republicans cause. We meet a host of well-known figures like John Dos Passos and Antoine de Saint-Exupery along the way in this beautifully written account of a hugely significant war. Vaill has captured the heartbreak, despair and glamour of the conflict in a riveting narrative style that makes this book a must-have addition to the wealth of literature on the subject.

ENDS

Hotel Florida: Truth, Love and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill is published by Bloomsbury, £25

Julian Mash is manager of the Idler Academy and author of Portobello Road: Tales of a Neighbourhood (Frances Lincoln)