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Javier Cercas in Conversation with Amanda Vaill

 

May 1, 2010 | Instituto Cervantes | NYC

With Javier Cercas and Amanda Vaill

Co-sponsored by Instituto Cervantes

LISTEN | Download the mp3

Javier Cercas, one of Spain’s most celebrated authors, wrote his novel, Soldiers of Salamis, about an incident from the Spanish Civil War. The book was made into a movie and was hailed by Boyd Tonkin as “a classic novel … about the filtration of war’s tragedies through memory and myth.” His most recent book, Anatomía de un Instante, is a chilling reconstruction of the 1981 attempt by army insurgents to bring fascism back to democratic Spain. He’ll speak with Amanda Vaill, whose biography, Everybody Was So Young, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and who is at work on a book about three couples whose lives intersected during the Spanish Civil War. Join them for a conversation about that war, its enduring aftermath, the role of fiction in rendering the complexity of the past, and much more.

PEN BLOGS: 

• Chad Post: Yesterday was one of the busiest days I’ve had in a long time. I interviewed three authors–Sofi Oksanen, Rodrigo Fresan, and Quim Monzo….[more]

• Judith Richardson: I came to this session because of my interest in the Spanish Civil War. This was my father’s war; when the brigadistas had their reunion in Spain a few years ago, I attended this moving event with members of my family. [more]