I really hope you’ll want to find out more about the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. Here are some very good places to start:
Antifascistas: British & Irish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War in Words and Pictures, by Richard Baxell, Angela Jackson and Jim Jump (London: Lawrence & Wishart / IBMT, 2010)
The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, by Helen Graham (Oxford: OUP, 2005)
From the outset, I wanted to make A World Between Us as accurate as I possibly could and so I’ve drawn on the lives and work of a huge number of people. Prepare for a long list, starting with the volunteers, journalists and other supporters of Republican Spain, whose courage and commitment moved me to write this book in the first place. These include Ted Allan, Jay Allen, Arturo Barea, Winifred Bates, Leila Berg, Alvah Bessie, Hetty Bower, John Cornford, Virginia Cowles, Len Crome, David Crook, Patience Darton, Penny Feiwel, Aurora Fernandez, Martha Gellhorn, Walter Gregory, Nan Green, Jason Gurney, Charlotte Haldane, Joe Jacobs, Lou Kenton, Bernard Knox, John Langdon-Davies, Emmanuel Litvinoff, James Neugass, Hank Rubin, Reginald Saxton, John Sommerfield and Tom Wintringham. A few real people appear in the novel: Dr Bethune, Ilsa Kulcsar, Arturo Barea, ‘Rita’, and the journalists and sea captain in Bilbao. The racehorse and her owner were also real.
I’ve immersed myself in the work of some outstanding historians of the Spanish Civil War and its era, particularly Richard Baxell, Paul Preston, Angela Jackson, Helen Graham and Jim Jump, but also including Sally Alexander, Anthony Beevor, Tom Buchanan, Nicholas Coni, Jim Fyrth, Juliet Gardiner, James Hopkins, Nick Rankin, Hugh Thomas and Herbert Southworth. Huge thanks to Richard Baxell and Jeremy Scott for generous and invaluable help with maps and fact-checking, and also to Jessamy Harvey for making sure my Spanish made sense. I’m extremely grateful to the following libraries, museums, archives and organisations: British Library, Guernica Peace Museum, Hunterian Museum, Imperial War Museum, International Brigade Memorial Trust, London Library, Marx Memorial Library, Jewish Museum, Royal London Hospital Museum, St Bartholomew’s Museum, and Wellcome Library.
Friends young and old have been incredibly generous with suggestions, information, books, comments on early drafts and general encouragement, and I’d like to thank Dominic Anderson, Simon Banfield, Paul Barnes, Charlotte Baxter, Christopher Cook, Laura Davies, Fátima Duerden, Lydia Durkin, Emily King, Iris Mathieson, Frank Radcliffe-Adams, Polly Radcliffe, Michael Rosen, Rivka Shaw and Fabian Thomas. Natasha Lehrer, Richard Taylor, Tig Thomas and the Finsbury Group (Keren David, Fenella Fairbairn, Jennifer Gray, Becky Jones, Anna Longman and Amanda Swift) were all brilliantly constructive readers. Most heartfelt thanks too to my agent Catherine Clarke and everyone in the amazing Hot Key team, particularly Sarah Odedina, Georgia Murray, Jet Purdie, Jan Bielecki, Kate Manning, Sarah Benton, Megan Farr and Naomi Colthurst.
Finally, four generations of my family have been involved in this book in various ways, and I couldn’t have written it without them: Jack, Maire, Lucy, Nick, Polly, Nic, Antonia, Luke, Phoebe, Adam, Rufus, Solomon and, above all, Martin. The loving and intelligent support of my daughter, my sister and my husband, and my three sons too, has been utterly unstinting. It leaves me lost for words.