La Guerra Del General Escobar

This frequently reprinted bestseller provoked strong reactions when it was first published eight years after Franco's death. Himself a leading Spanish catholic thinker coming to terms with a permissive socialist society, Olaizola here explores the paradox of General Escobar - a Civil Guard and Franciscan tertiary who joined with communists and anarchists to defend the Republic against Franco's "catholic" crusade. Winner of the prestigious Planeta Prize, "La Guerra del General Escobar" is the fictional diary of the General as he awaits the death sentence in Barcelona. He reviews his experience of the civil war, the divided loyalties within his own family and the divisions that threatened to destroy the Republic. Unknown to Olaizola, the General had indeed kept a prison diary. In her critical introduction, Rosemary Clark discusses, among other things, how its remarkable similarities to the fictional diary add authority to Olaizola's exploration of the deeper significance of the Spanish Cicil War.